"All Michigan voters can securely vote from home by using the enclosed application to request a vote-by-mail ballot," reads a mailer that says it was "Paid for" by a group called The Voter Project Michigan.
Paquette told The Federalist the mailer arrived at his mother's old address and was addressed to her maiden name - with which she registered to vote in 1979.
Its return address is a nondescript P.O. box in the small town of Dexter, and it features a disclaimer: "Paid for by The Voter Project Michigan and authorized by Governor Gretchen Whitmer." Paquette said his Republican mother had not been living at the Marquette, Michigan address, so his Democrat grandmother received the mailer at the address.
Registration application shared with The Federalist by Paquette Photo courtesy of Michigan State Representative Brad Paquette The application disclaims that only U.S. citizens can vote, and directs readers to a "Reverse side" for "Additional instructions and warnings" - but Paquette said that side of the paper was blank.
A Statewide Issue In the small town of Hillsdale - home to conservative Hillsdale College - City Councilman Robert Socha said The Voter Project Michigan sent a mailer to each of his three adult children.
Like the Whitmer mailers, they also claimed "All Michigan voters can securely vote from home by using the enclosed application to request a vote-by-mail ballot" and featured the same Dexter P.O. box as a return address.
Angela Benander, director of communications for Democrat Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, responded to similar questions, telling The Federalist that third-party voter registration and absentee applications are common.
"In election years, many third-party groups send voter registration forms or absentee ballot applications directly to voters and request they return them to their local clerk's office," Benander said.
"Questions about the recipients and contents of these specific mailers should be directed to the organization that sent them." The Voter Project Michigan does not appear as a licensed business in Michigan or as a tax-exempt organization.
Benander said county clerks are "Required by law to verify that the signatures on forms match the signature on file with the voter's record before accepting them." However, Benson has a history of failing to clean the state's voter rolls.
"These types of error-filled mailings can confuse voters, facilitate fraud in the absentee balloting process, and ultimately disenfranchise legitimate voters." If the group is working on behalf of Whitmer, von Spakovsky suggested she may be "Abusing her position as a government official for partisan political purposes." He said an investigation "Should include" finding the source of this group's mailing list, which he called "Seriously out-of-date and inaccurate." Paquette said he and other state legislators are looking into the issue.
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