(The Center Square) – Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson has until Thursday to meet with leaders of the House Committee investigating election training materials and prove why some subpoenaed information should be withheld from its view.
A letter from the Michigan House lawyer invited Benson to appear privately to explain why the secretary of state’s office can’t disclose all the unredacted training materials the committee wants to see.
“The Secretary of State’s office should look at our invitation as us giving them the benefit of the doubt for their frankly appalling lack of transparency. We are handing them the opportunity to come and demonstrate to us that their claims of confidentiality are truthful. If they actually have confidential materials that cannot, for whatever reason, be disclosed to legislators, they should be able to show us that in a private setting,” Reps. Jay DeBoyer, R-Clay Township, and Rachelle Smit, R-Shelbyville, said in a statement.
The letter follows months of back-and-forth between the committee and Benson, which resulted in an April subpoena for the materials.
Benson, through Attorney General Dana Nessel, objected, saying she will continue to protect information that could potentially be used to impact the chain of custody of ballots, tamper with election equipment or impersonate a clerk on election day.
Overall, Benson has released 3,300 pages of training documents to the committee over a five-month stretch, but the committee wants more.
“When we were clerks no more than three years ago, we could see every piece of the election training materials that Jocelyn Benson is now hiding from us. Her refusal now to hand over this information prompts the question: is it because we are no longer clerks, or is it because we are now legislators trying to hold her accountable?” DeBoyer and Smit said. “Her department will have the chance to prove to us that it’s the former and not the latter by sitting down with us in private and showing us why this allegedly sensitive information must be kept confidential.”
