Election Fairness Matters #1
Buckle up-if you've been waiting for a fiery post, here it is! When I am about to post something confrontational, I run it by Sara for advice. She read the draft of this post and told me I was pulling my punches and I should say what I mean clearly.
She's right. So, here it goes (This Ole Ram is about to get lots of hate mail):
Last year Harbor Springs saw a 10% increase in registered voters. In a town of 1241, that is a lot.
All of those new voters had to certify they were residents of Harbor Springs. The state of Michigan (Act 116 of 1954) says your "residence" for voting is: "the place at which the person resides the greater part of the time."
Many of those same new voters certified on their tax forms, this spring, that their primary residence (where they spent the majority of their time) was somewhere else.
Claiming one place as your permanent residence for purposes of voting and at the same time claiming a totally different permanent residence for the purposes of taxes may not be strictly "illegal” but it sure doesn't sit well with me.
I bet if you stopped folks at the IGA and asked them if that seemed fair, they would say, "Nope. Not fair at all."
If your instinct is to say., "That this sure seems like a shady attempt for people who only live here part of the year to influence our local government," you are not alone.
I think we can agree that decisions about our town should be left to those who don't just say this is their home-but who actually live here a majority of the time. Period.
People who live in Harbor Springs part time certainly have an interest in what happens here. Heck, people who live in neighboring townships seem real interested too. They are all absolutely entitled to be heard in our public processes.
As an issue of fairness, by definition, where you vote and the home you claim as your primary residence for taxes should be the same address. Yes, there are some limited exceptions to this-but one of those expectations is not: "There is something important happening where my second home is so I am gonna switch."
If you think this whole thing is trivial-I assure you some do not. Last fall our municipal elections for City Council and the vote to repeal the zoning code were decided by less than 80 votes.
Those decisions have cost the people who live here as residents a good deal of time and money.
Eighty-three of our new Harbor Springs voters registered last year are older than 30. We absolutely did not sell 83 new homes in Harbor last year. My guess is this wasn't the first time many of those participated in an presidential election. It might, however, have been the first time they voted using their Harbor Springs address.
Honestly, if folks really decided to spend the majority of the year here because zoning was that important to them then...well...awesome! We need more full-time residents.
That is not what happened here. There is little doubt, many registered in Harbor Springs so they could help us decide the makeup of the Council and the zoning code question. They manipulated the system to get what they wanted. (There is a lot of that going around.)
I will grant that people register to vote for all sorts of reasons and are often motivated by an issue they are passionate about. That is great!
What is NOT okay, is certifying that you spend the majority of your time in one place on your voting application and then signing your tax paperwork that claims another place as your primary residence.
You simply cannot spend the majority of your time in two places. If you are doing that, you are gaming the system.
I am going to get lots of grief about this post (likely from friends and foes alike)...but if you certified that you are a resident of Harbor Springs, but attend all City meetings exclusively on Zoom-I am not buying what you are selling.
This week, I publicly (and in person) asked the City Council to look into this issue. In the coming weeks, we will be taking a look at available public records to highlight discrepancies and alert the proper authorities. Will anything happen? Who the heck knows...but it is important and adding a spotlight to what is right is never wrong.
Local elections should be decided by the people who are statutory "residents" of Harbor Springs-voters who spend the majority of the year living in our beautiful town.
That is fair. And I am going to bet the vast majority of Harbor Springs residents agree with me.
Source for Michigan Statute definition of "Residence" for voting purposes: https://www.legislature.mi.gov/doc.../mcl/pdf/mcl-168-11.pdf
Source for Primary Residence Exemption information in Emmett County: https://bsaonline.com/?uid=353# (You can look up folks by name or address in the search bar up top.)
I am going to list a bunch of important people...I hope they take a look at this page's posts and what we stand for...maybe we can get some attention on this issue (if you are new, yes the Ram is silly. His name is Lil "Nubbins, and its a thing):
Governor Gretchen Whitmer Michigan Department of Attorney General Michigan Secretary of State's Office State Senator John Damoose Parker Fairbairn - State Representative Harbor Light Newspaper
As always-thank you and please pass this along if you feel comfortable. I’d live to hear tou comments (agree or not). Go Rams!