The Republican-led Michigan House Oversight Committee has authorized a subpoena targeting Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson for refusing to share election training materials with lawmakers.
House Republicans and the Democratic Secretary of State, who is Michigan’s top election administrator, have been trading jabs for weeks. Benson has accused the committee’s GOP leadership of stoking doubt about the security of Michigan’s elections while the lawmakers say her refusal to cooperate raises doubts.
The oversight-approved subpoena comes the day after a deadline set by the House Elections Committee to receive the materials. The oversight panel is the only House committee with subpoena power.
“The Michigan House of Representatives has the right to know how Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson is instructing local election officials to conduct the elections within the state,” said Representative Jay DeBoyer (R-Clay Township).
The subpoena was adopted on a party-line vote with one Democrat abstaining.
Representative Lori Pohutsky (D-Livonia) said she would like a clearer idea of what issuing the subpoena is supposed to accomplish and how that information will be used.
“And I frankly think that the process laid out here, it just makes that very difficult because we’re not seeing any of that ahead of time,” she said, “so I don’t know right now what we are potentially going to be issuing in a subpoena.”
Benson spokesperson Angela Benander said the office is working to scrub the materials to be shared of information that could be used to access secured communication channels, voting equipment security among other things and locations for election administrator training. She said the Secretary of State is prepared to provide redacted material as that is accomplished.
“Unfortunately, the committee has hijacked what was supposed to be a legitimate oversight process,” she said. “They have made the committee chair — a single individual with no legal background — judge and jury with the power to force state employees to disclose sensitive election security information or face discipline. It’s now clear that the plan all along was to weaponize this process and continue to undermine the public’s faith in the security and legitimacy of our elections.”
Benander also said Benson is prepared to fight the subpoena in court if necessary.
