Michiganders took to mail-in voting like ducks to water. In the six years since the state implemented no-reason absentee voting (eight years since an overwhelming majority approved this change at the polls) the number of Michiganders casting ballots by mail has soared. In the 2024 presidential election, 60% of votes were cast early or absentee. Some say that in this year’s statewide elections, it could be 70%.
But this change in the voting cycle came with a terrible oversight. When we shifted voting forward six weeks, we didn’t change campaign finance filing deadlines to match. The result? A lot less transparency in our elections, when it matters the most.
Absentee ballots go out on June 25, but the next campaign finance filing deadline for state candidates is July 24, little more than a week before the Aug. 4 primary.
(State and local candidates file reports to the state or county based on state-set deadlines; candidates for congressional seats file quarterly with the Federal Election Commission, a much more reasonable pace.)
That’s the bad news. Here’s the good news: The Legislature can absolutely fix this.
Not very transparent, folks
State campaign finance filing deadlines were set back when nearly all ballots were cast in person, at the polls on Election Day. A week and a half gave voters (and journalists!) plenty of time to understand what those filings told us before voters headed to the polls.
Requiring candidates to disclose who’s funding their campaigns is the foundation of transparency.
Knowing whether a candidate has the support of the business community, big political action committees or small-dollar donors can tell you a lot about the sort of campaign they’re running, their legislative priorities and whose backing they can honestly claim to have. These disclosures can also help journalists like me determine who’s running a serious race in, say, a local legislative field packed with first-time candidates.
Or it could, if we still had access to this information before Michiganders started voting.
Let’s get it done
I wrote about this misalignment last year, during Detroit’s mayoral election, pointing out the problem and suggesting a solution: Shift the pre-election filing deadline to fall two weeks before absentees are mailed.
In the last year, I’ve raised this subject with a fair number of state lawmakers. None have objected to changing the deadline; most have been supportive. Yet it hasn’t happened.
Michigan voters have to slog through a lot of mis- and disinformation to make good decisions. Like AI slop, shamefully popping up in Michigan’s governor’s race. Or “influencers” whose political commentary is factually incorrect, and possibly influenced by sponsors they aren’t required to disclose. More than ever, voters need factual information from reliable sources ― like the information disclosed in a campaign finance filing.
This election cycle, when statewide candidates knock on your door and ask what it’ll take to earn your vote, consider mentioning transparency, via changing the campaign finance filing deadline to align with the election cycle.
There are a lot of problems our state Legislature can’t ― or at least won’t ― solve. This is one we absolutely can. So, how ’bout it?
A version of this column originally published in the June 12 Freep Opinion newsletter. Freep Opinion is your roundup of the week’s opinion content, including an exclusive bonus column from Editorial Page Editor Nancy Kaffer or one of our contributing columnists. Sign up here.
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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Fix campaign finance loophole hiding money from Michigan voters | Opinion
Reporting by Nancy Kaffer, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Nancy Kaffer, Detroit Free Press | USA TODAY Network
