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Michigan House Republicans have put more than $10 million in state election support on the chopping block in their proposed budget for the coming fiscal year.
The $10 million hit is a tiny portion of a huge budget battle that may lead to a shutdown of Michigan’s government next month. But in a state that has over 1,600 election officials and dozens of local elections scheduled for November, it represents the slashing of a critical resource.
In the 2024-25 fiscal year, the Department of State’s budget was about $292 million. Proposals from the Senate, which is controlled by Democrats, and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s office would both boost it to about $296.5 million, while the latest budget proposed by House Republicans would cut it down to $222.5 million.
Among the largest election-related cuts from the House budget is the more than $10 million allocated to the Election Administration Support Fund, which helps fund early voting and absentee ballots at the local level. The cut represents more than half of what the fund was allocated in the current fiscal year.
That money, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson told Votebeat, is intended to help clerks navigate the expensive voting rights expansions voters approved in 2018 and 2022. That includes additional staffing for the now-mandatory nine days of early voting in federal and statewide elections, as well as postage for the growing number of absentee ballots.
“These cuts would diminish the ability for our staff to provide support to local clerks that is critical to ensuring not just that elections go smoothly, but that security provisions and updates are in place to protect the accuracy of the vote,” she said.
She added that the Bureau of Elections would be cut by a third under the plan, limiting support for tasks such as testing electronic pollbooks and securing ballot drop boxes.
In a news release Monday, Benson estimated the budget would force layoffs of more than 400 employees across her department, and the closing of 10% of branch offices where residents get driver’s licenses. Cuts would also affect staff in the consumer protection division.
She told Votebeat that she was working with the governor’s office on counterproposals that would reduce her department’s budget overall, as House leaders want, without “creating a lot of hurt to our elections, our department and to the citizens of Michigan.”
Republican leaders did not respond to requests for comment from Votebeat on Monday.
In a press conference last week, Republicans argued that their proposals targeted waste. Rep. Ann Bollin, a Republican from Brighton Township and the chair of the House Appropriations Committee, said that the budget proposed in the House “targets all the priorities of people across Michigan.”
If leaders can’t reach a consensus by Oct. 1, the start of the new fiscal year, the state government is likely to shut down. That could mean that state officials aren’t able to fully support local clerks during their upcoming 2025 elections — including Detroit’s mayoral race, as well as council elections, millages, and ballot proposals around the state.
Benson said her department has a plan that would allow it to keep “some of the lights on, if not all of them” during a shutdown, but noted that state support for local elections would be limited if a shutdown encroached on the November elections.
She added that most major administrative decisions for November’s local elections have already been made and funded locally.
Calhoun County Clerk Kimberly Hinkley said the prospect of a full shutdown doesn’t scare her much. Her county, which includes Battle Creek, has only three elections scheduled in November — a local government millage in Tekonsha (population about 650) and two school millages. Costs for those elections largely fall back on the entities that requested them, she said.
Clerks will get the work done, Hinkley added, but for now, they are waiting for decisions out of Lansing.
“Revenue for all of us across the board, whether it’s the county or local cities or townships, we’re all concerned about what these cuts may look like for our services,” Hinkley said.
Hayley Harding is a reporter for Votebeat based in Michigan. Contact Hayley at hharding@votebeat.org.
