Bipartisan coalition of Michigan poll workers files lawsuit in support of ‘renegade’ poll worker • Michigan Advance

“Local and county officials are doing their best to hire dedicated and honest poll workers for our elections,” said Ingham County Democratic County Clerk Barb Byrum. “We must be more careful now than ever before because there are efforts to introduce troublemakers into the process. We must hold them accountable when their actions compromise the security of our elections, and we hope the Michigan Supreme Court will do that in this case.”

Holkeboer was collected in 2022 according to officials accused him of inserting a USB drive containing confidential voter registration data into a computer in Gaines Township, Kent County, during the primary election in August of that year. A witness observed Holkeboer inserting the device into the Electronic Poll Book, the computer used to conduct elections that contains voter registration data.

In April, the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled governed that Holkeboer’s application for a hearing in the District Court was inadmissible and should be rejected because, by inserting the USB stick, he had merely copied the voters’ list and had not compromised the integrity of the document or the integrity of the election.

In its reasoning for the decision to appeal to the Michigan Supreme Court, The justices laid out the main reasons why they believed the appeals court’s decision should be overturned, including that it would “undermine election security, voter privacy, and public confidence in elections” because “information extracted from electronic voter rolls could include nonpublic voter information (such as driver’s license numbers and the last four digits of the Social Security number), and any extracted voter information could be misused to damage public confidence in the election system.”

Jonathan Miller, chief program officer at the Public Rights Project, said that with election integrity already under scrutiny, the public needs to be able to trust those who have been given access to their private voter information.

“While most election inspectors act in good faith, we must hold actors who abuse their access accountable. Eliminating criminal penalties risks undermining election security, voter privacy and public confidence in Michigan’s elections,” Miller said.

“Our elections are too important to leave unclear what should be a clear line on what a poll worker cannot do under oath,” added Abe Dane, Hillsdale County elections supervisor and coalition member.

Lawrence Kestenbaum, Washtenaw County clerk and Democrat and member of the coalition, pointed out that given the size of the polling staff, it is imperative to have clear rules and guidelines that everyone must follow.

“In November 2022, we had about 1,700 poll workers in this county alone, and with the introduction of early voting, we will need even more this year,” he said. “With such a large group, it is possible that a few bad apples will misbehave. Dealing with situations like this is much more difficult when there are no consequences for intentionally interfering in the conduct of an election.”