In Michigan, Secretary of State Ruth Johnson, with the help of U.S. Rep. Candice Miller, hopes to cut down on potential voter fraud by removing about 20,000 names from Michigan voter rolls.

An election reform package proposed by Johnson this week features another attempt to delete the “dead wood” from the voter registration rolls — names that could be used fraudulently at the polls to cast illegal ballots.

“Some of the people on what is called our Qualified Voter File aren’t ‘qualified’ at all — they’re dead, they’ve moved out of state, or they’re not U.S. citizens,” said Johnson, citing a 2008 Pew Center on the States report that indicated an impossible 102.54 percent of eligible adults in Michigan were registered to vote. “That doesn’t add up and indicates vulnerabilities in the system.”

The bloated rolls in Michigan is just another example of the Voting Section at DOJ not raising a single finger to ensure that timely list maintenance activities are conducted as required under federal voting laws.  However, it appears the Voting Section is not the only federal agency doing their best to hinder Michigan. 

Johnson spokeswoman Gisgie Gendreau said the Secretary of State’s office seeks access to federal Homeland Security, Social Security and immigration databases to help remove non-citizens from the rolls. But those agencies have not responded to requests for access.