Court ruling and Michigan probe spotlight voting rules

Supreme Court blocks mail-ballot restrictions

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration cannot use the Postal Service to restrict mail-in ballots before the midterm elections. Two justices dissented.

Justice Samuel Alito, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, wrote that the Postal Service has broad authority to regulate mail and raised concerns about voter fraud. President Donald Trump has claimed without evidence that absentee voting is widely affected by fraud.

Democratic U.S. Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan welcomed the ruling Tuesday but said election officials and voters should remain watchful for further attempts by the administration to change election procedures. He also said the decision should have been unanimous and criticized the two dissenting justices.

Michigan House examines ballot proposal

A Michigan House committee has been convened to investigate why a proposed constitutional amendment requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote did not qualify for the November ballot.

Americans for Citizen Voting submitted more than 700,000 petition signatures for the proposal. The bipartisan Board of State Canvassers split 2-2 on whether it should advance.

The board examined a sample of 1,000 signatures and found enough signatures with disqualifying problems to conclude that the campaign would fall short of the required threshold. The deadlock kept the proposal off the ballot.

Committee plans hearings

Republican state Rep. Mike Harris, the committee chair, said the panel plans to hear from election officials and people connected to ballot-measure campaigns. Those hearings could address how petition signatures are sampled, reviewed and disqualified, as well as the canvassers’ role in deciding whether a proposal reaches voters.