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Update, Oct. 9, 11:02 a.m.: This story has been updated to show Deputy Clerk Dawn Webb posted a letter acknowledging and apologizing for her error to the township’s website.
Correction, Oct. 9: This story has been corrected with the fact that Oct. 5 is seven days after Michigan’s deadline to mail absentee ballots, not six days.
After the ACLU of Michigan sent a letter threatening potential legal action against a small northern Michigan community, its deputy clerk has apologized for her misleading defense of sending out the township’s absentee ballots late.
The letter, viewed by Votebeat and confirmed by the ACLU, accused Tuscarora Township Deputy Clerk Dawn Webb of writing in a community Facebook group that there isn’t a legal deadline for mailing absentee ballots, only for making them available to voters to pick up.
The ACLU contends that’s a fundamental misunderstanding of Michigan election law. State statutes require that absentee ballots be mailed to voters 40 days before the election, which this year was Sept. 24. It’s not uncommon for officials to miss that deadline for reasons out of their control; Votebeat reported last week that printing backlogs and tight election timetables caused absentee ballot delays in a number of Michigan communities.
But Tuscarora Township may have waited too long. According to Webb, Tuscarora Township received its ballots on Sept. 29, but took until Oct. 5 to mail them all to voters — seven working days after the 40-day deadline.
The law requires that clerks must send absentee ballots to voters “immediately” after getting their applications. If the application is in place before the ballots are received by local officials, they must be sent “as soon as the absent voter ballots are received by the clerk.”
“There is no legally cognizable excuse for failing to mail out the ballots until October 5, a full week later,” Phil Mayor, the ACLU of Michigan’s deputy legal director, wrote in the group’s letter.
More than 800 of Tuscarora Township’s roughly 3,000 people are on the permanent absentee voting list, according to state records. The delay in getting ballots to them “unconstitutionally deprived them of several days” of voting time, Mayor’s letter continued.
The ACLU requested that Webb both publicly retract her comments and the township issue a press release “in a prominent and obvious place on its website,” stating that the township will comply with election law by Friday.
If that did not happen, Mayor wrote that the ACLU “will consider all appropriate legal action to ensure that Tuscarora voters are not disenfranchised in future elections.”
As of Friday morning, a lengthy letter from Webb now appears on the township’s website acknowledging her misunderstanding of Michigan election law and apologizing for the delays in the ballot mailings. She said that she wrongly waited to mail out the ballots until she could conduct preliminary testing recommended by the Michigan Bureau of Elections.
“I acknowledge that providing ballots for pickup alone does not satisfy these obligations and I will correct any confusion that I may have caused the community,” she wrote.
A spokesperson for the Michigan Department of State confirmed Wednesday that the Bureau of Elections was looking into the accusations but was unable to provide additional details. The bureau was still attempting to get in touch with Tuscarora Township as of Thursday evening, a spokesperson said. The state previously confirmed to Votebeat that communities aren’t typically penalized for delayed ballots as long as officials are working to get them to voters.
Ann Mullen, the ACLU of Michigan’s communications director, said Thursday that her team is unaware of any clerks who still haven’t sent out their ballots, but noted “this is an issue our team continues to monitor.”
“Our expectation is that clerks follow election laws and send out absentee ballots at the beginning of the 40-day period prior to an election, at least so long as they have printed ballots by that date,” Mullen wrote in an email. “If we hear reports where that has not happened, our legal team addresses them immediately with clerks to ensure ballots are sent quickly and that the clerks understand the law and must follow it.”
The ACLU of Michigan has shown a willingness in the past to take action against election officials who suggested they might operate outside state laws. In 2024, for example, the group preemptively sued a Kalamazoo County canvasser after he said he might not certify the election.
The organization dropped the suit after the canvassers signed a sworn affidavit pledging to fulfill his legal obligation to certify the election.
Hayley Harding is a reporter for Votebeat based in Michigan. Contact Hayley at hharding@votebeat.org.
