Susan J. Demas
In the lead up to Election Day on Nov. 5, following a report of a University of Michigan student from China casting a ballot at an Ann Arbor polling place, Sen. Ruth Johnson (R-Holly) submitted a letter to Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson inquiring on the state’s safeguards to prevent ineligible individuals from voting.
Johnson, who preceded Benson as secretary of state serving from 2011 through 2018, raised concerns about a mismatch between information about new voter registrations and information stored in federal Social Security records, facilitated through the Security Administration’s Help America Vote Verification (HAVV) system, inquiring as to how many of these individuals had voted, and questioned the integrity of the state’s system for same-day voter registration and provisions allowing individuals to register to vote by signing an affidavit in place of showing photo ID.
While Johnson pointed to 34,535 individuals whose name, date of birth and social security numbers did not match any record in the Social Security database, Jonathan Brater, director of the Michigan Bureau of Elections, wrote in his response Thursday that Johnson’s letter contained misconceptions on the function of the HAVV system.
“HAVV allows states to attempt to verify the last four digits of a social security number submitted by an applicant. HAVV cannot be used, is not used, and never has been used to verify the citizenship status of an applicant,” Brater wrote. “HAVV cannot be used for this purpose because it matches against the Social Security Administration database of social security numbers, and some non-citizens have social security numbers.”
While Johnson wrote in her letter that she was “alarmed to learn recently of a dramatic increase” in transactions submitted to the system which “returned as non-matching to a known U.S. citizen,” Brater responded that the system does not provide information on whether an individual is a known citizen and that this information does not appear on the HAVV system site.
Brated noted an inquiry in the system provides the following results: no match, single match alive, multiple matches alive, single match deceased, multiple matches deceased, multiple matches alive/deceased, or invalid input data.
He also noted that the system matches information to a “person,” rather than a “citizen.”
While Johnson inquired as to how many of the 34,535 non-matching transactions reported by the system represented new voter registrations, Brater said the number of HAVV transactions does not correspond to the number of voter registrations, making it impossible to determine that number.
He further explained that the state uses the HAVV system to verify the last four digits of the social security numbers of voters with disabilities applying for an accessible absentee ballot.
“Because these individuals are less likely to have a Michigan driver’s license, this application allows voters to apply for an accessible absent voter ballot by providing the last four digits of their social security number. Michigan uses HAVV to verify the social security number provided and verify that the applicant matches to a registered voter in Michigan,” Brater said.
If the system shows a match, that person can apply for an accessible absentee ballot, Brater said. If it does not, the application is rejected and the clerk will not issue a ballot.
“Notably, an individual could submit an unlimited number of unsuccessful applications using the Omniballot application with non-matching data. None of these applications would result in an absent voter ballot being issued, but each would generate a non-match in HAVV. Alternatively, an eligible individual may also require multiple attempts to apply successfully, resulting in non-matches followed by a match,” Brater said.
Consequently, there is no reason to believe 34,545 non-matches submitted to the system means that 34,545 individuals registered to vote without providing a Social Security number, Brater said.
While the vast majority of voters register online or automatically with their driver’s license number, those without a license can register by mail or in person by providing the last four digits of their Social Security number, Brater said. If they do not, they must present a federally required ID before voting.
If a voter registers in person, the federal ID requirement does not apply but the voter must present voter identification or sign an affidavit as required by Michigan election law, Brater said, noting individuals registering within 14 days of an election must provide proof of residency in order to vote.
“Therefore, no matter how a voter registers, they must provide verification of identity. In nearly all cases, this is in the form of a Michigan driver’s license. In other cases, it is through the last four digits of a social security number, or other forms of identification as required by state and federal law,” Brater said.
“Regardless, legal requirements and election procedures ensure that voters identify themselves when registering and voting. While your letter reflects concerns about verifying the eligibility of applicants, the purpose of HAVV is to verify the identity of the voter,” Brater said.
However, Johnson was not pleased with Brater’s response.
“The response we received did not answer any of the questions we asked. The number of non-matches has gone up significantly. We understand that the 35,000 non-matches were not all voter registrations — that’s why we asked how many were voter registrations and how many of these individuals voted,” Johnson said in a response supplied by her office.
“We know this happens, it happened recently at UM. But it was only caught because this individual went back to the clerk’s office to ask for their ballot back. Whenever someone who is ineligible is allowed to vote this disenfranchises an eligible voter, so I think it is very important to get this information from the secretary of state,” Johnson said.
Election officials have continuously stressed that noncitizen voting is exceedingly rare, with a 2017 review from the Brennan Center for Justice of 42 jurisdictions in the 2016 general election finding “election officials in those places, who oversaw the tabulation of 23.5 million votes, referred only an estimated 30 incidents of suspected noncitizen voting for further investigation or prosecution. In other words, even suspected — not proven — noncitizen votes accounted for just 0.0001 percent of the votes cast.”
The libertarian Cato Institute similarly wrote that noncitizens don’t illegally vote in detectable numbers when examining claims about noncitizen voting in the 2020 election.