September 17, 2020

Accessible Electronic Absent Voter Ballots

Accessible Electronic Absent Voter Ballots will be available for voters starting Friday. Starting with the November Election, accessible ballots will now be available through the Democracy Live OmniBallot program, which is also the program voters use to apply for accessible ballots.

For voters who have applied for accessible ballots for November, the Bureau of Elections will update the voter’s QVF record accordingly and email the clerk a link to an accessible ballot to send to the voter. Unlike the August election accessible ballot, the Democracy Live Omniballot is accessed on a secure web portal which the voter will reach by clicking on the link.

When clerks receive a link to a ballot for the voter, clerks should review the ballot and send the link to the voter with the provided accompanying instructions. Clerks should also mark the voter’s QVF record to indicate that the accessible ballot has been sent. The voter will then fill out the ballot, print it, and return it to the clerk in a signed envelope. If any clerks already have accessible AV ballot activity recorded for the voter prior to Friday, they should contact the Bureau of Elections to reconcile data by emailing MDOS-Accessible@Michigan.gov.

Reminder: Security Workshop Sept. 22

We have scheduled an additional Election Security Workshop on Tuesday, September 22. Please join the Michigan Bureau of Elections, DTMB, Michigan State Police, and Department of Homeland Security for this program, which covers critical election security issues for 2020. Please RSVP to Browna30@Michigan.gov by September 18 to participate in this workshop.

Additional Center for Tech and Civic Life Grant Funding Available – Apply by October 1!

The Bureau of Elections received additional information from the Center for Tech and Civic Life about grant funding that remains available for election officials in Michigan. Jurisdictions can learn more about applying on the CTCL website: https://www.techandciviclife.org/grants/

Election offices can use the funds to cover certain 2020 expenses incurred between June 15, 2020 and December 31, 2020. Below is a list of costs that can be paid for using these grants, which include the costs associated with the safe administration of the following election responsibilities.

• Maintain open in-person polling places on Election Day
• Procure PPE
• Support and expand voting options outside the precinct building (such as curbside voting), including purchase of additional signage, tents, traffic control, walkie-talkies, and safety measures
• Publish reminders for voters to verify and update their address, or other voter registration information, prior to the election
• Educate voters on safe voting policies and procedures
• Recruit and hire a sufficient number of election inspectors to ensure polling places are properly staffed, utilizing hazard pay where required
• Provide polling places with funds to compensate for increased site cleaning and sanitization costs
• Deliver updated training for current and new poll workers administering elections to discuss COVID-19 and other issues.
• Expand or maintain satellite offices and drop boxes
• Deploy additional staff and/or technology improvements to expedite and improve AV ballot processing

Be sure to check out the grant FAQs for important information. If you have additional questions about the COVID-19 Response Grant program, please email help@techandciviclife.org.

IN THIS ISSUE

• Accessible Electronic Absent Voter Ballots
• MOVE Ballots
• Reminder Security Workshop Sept. 22
• Additional Center for Tech and Civic Life Grant Funding Available - Apply by October 1

MOVE Ballots

The deadline to issue any ballots requested by MOVE voters is Saturday, Sept. 19. As in past elections, some errors have been discovered in MOVE ballots generated out of QVF, either as a result of programming errors in QVF or errors in entering information into the Ballot Admin portal. If they have not already done so, counties should carefully review the information submitted in Ballot Admin to make sure it matches information on their printed ballots. Local clerks should review MOVE ballots downloaded from QVF to verify that the ballot contents are accurate before sending MOVE ballots to voters. Any clerk that has downloaded a MOVE ballot with an error has been notified to reissue a corrected ballot to the voter. As in past elections, if the voter accidentally returns the ballot with an error on it, it will still be duplicated and counted as would be the case with the correct ballot. If the voter returns both ballots, only the correct ballot will be counted. These procedures ensure that only one ballot is counted for each voter.

FINAL REMINDER: If you have received one or more ballot requests from military or overseas protected voters since November 6, 2019, ballots must be emailed, faxed or mailed by September 19, 2020 via the voter's preferred method for the November General election.

If you do not plan to work on Saturday, Sept. 19, you must ensure that all requested ballots are mailed or forwarded by the end-of-day Friday. If your office does not receive mail on Saturdays, you are not required to staff your office on Saturday, Sept. 19 for the purpose of issuing military/overseas ballots. However, all clerks (whether or open on Saturday or not), must check for email requests in their jurisdiction election email account, and issue a ballot if necessary, in the event that you receive a request by email on Saturday, Sept. 19. NOTE: The jurisdiction election email account is an email address you provided and is publicly available to military and overseas voters for the purpose of sending ballot requests to local election officials.

In addition, your jurisdiction must complete the MOVE survey in QVF by Tuesday, September 22, 2020 whether you had requests to fulfill or not. Jurisdictions with zero requests must still fill out the survey and report zero requests. The survey will be available beginning Sept. 19. This information will be forwarded to the US Department of Justice as part of BOE's reporting requirement.

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