|
|
|
|
Week of Thursday, July 29, 2004Complaint filed
about By KATHLEEN CONAT The Michigan Department of State’s Bureau of Elections has asked Ypsilanti Township Clerk Brenda Stumbo to answer several questions in connection with absentee ballots mailed to voters. Stumbo, who is running for re-election, has been sent a letter by Christopher M. Thomas, Michigan director of elections, asking her to answer seven questions about the ballots and a separate campaign mailing that included information about absentee voting and a facsimile of the ballot with members of her slate marked. Thomas asked Stumbo to reply by Thursday. Stumbo said Wednesday the complaint was "political." "I did not put a personal letter into any absentee ballots; that would be wrong," she said. "There is nothing to this; it is purely political – purely political." She said she has received no complaints herself about the mailing. The complaint, which was faxed to the state, prompted state election officials to ask Stumbo to provide additional information about the way the ballots and the political piece were handled. The complaint calls the campaign mailing "blatant political propaganda" and asks whether it should have been mailed out "with an absentee ballot." Stumbo said the complaint implies the campaign material went out in the same envelope with the absentee ballots, which "is not true." She said the ballot went out in a brown manila envelope and included a pencil and a postage-paid return envelope. The campaign material was mailed by her campaign and was paid for by her campaign, said Stumbo. That material carries a line "Paid for by Residents First" and includes Stumbo’s home address. Thomas’ letter to Stumbo asks her when she accepted delivery of the absentee ballots for the Aug. 3 primary, how many absentee ballot requests she had on file on the date she received the ballots, when she initiated distribution of the absentee ballots, when her campaign memo had been mailed, how many voters received her memo and how the distribution list for the memo was compiled and whether the campaign letter was coordinated with the issuance of the ballots. "The (campaign) piece went out in a separate letter that says it was paid for by my committee," said Stumbo. "This is clearly a political piece. This is nothing new. There is no way I have done anything different than I’ve ever done. It was a good informational piece. "If the complaint is I put that letter in with the ballot, that is not true. "Our residents are smarter than that," said Stumbo. "They know a political mailing from an absentee ballot." Ypsilanti Township has a list of permanent absentee voters that includes approximately 1,600 names. Stumbo said Wednesday that about 1,100 absentee ballots had already been returned, and additional requests to vote absentee are still coming into the clerk’s office. She said the ballots are processed and mailed by her staff, not by her personally, and the staff adheres strictly to the rules in handling them. An official in the Bureau of Elections said officials will review Stumbo’s response to the questions and then decide whether to proceed with any additional action or effort to get any more information. |
|
Home | For the Record |
Comment |
Letters |
Religion |
Photo | What's Happening in Ypsilanti
|
