South Michigan News

Michigan Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey (R-Clarklake) recently appeared on WJR's "The Frank Beckmann Show" to address accusations that he is only lukewarm on legislation to permit county clerks to begin the count of mail-in ballots on Monday, Nov. 2, instead of waiting for election day.

Beckmann opened the show by bringing attention to an editorial by Brian Dickerson of the Detroit Free Press that alleges Shirkey wants “election night chaos.”

"I’ve never disagreed more with my friend Brian Dickerson than I do about this,” Beckmann said on his radio show.

Sen. Mike Shirkey | #MiSenateGOP

Shirkey told Beckmann that he feels Dickerson is adding unnecessary fuel to the fire of partisan politics. Dickerson never talked to Shirkey before putting his interpretation of the majority leader’s motives to print.

"It is groundless, and, frankly, it’s -- I believe it’s incendiary, and unnecessarily so,” he told Beckmann. 

Shirkey said that a lack of consensus and wild speculation prior to the primary election caused him to pause discussion of early vote counting in order to permit lawmakers to take a careful examination of the situation and consult with the clerks on the front lines of the election.

"And so we’ve been very methodical about this, and I just reject the notion that there’s any -- any -- interest at all in making the election chaotic,” Shirkey told Beckmann. “The highest priority is access and integrity.”

Shirkey said that, regardless of party affiliation, he believes the overwhelming majority of county clerks across the state are concerned, above all else, with running a legitimate election.

The goal of Senate then becomes to ensure those clerks have the time and tools they need to produce that legitimate election, he told Beckmann. To accomplish that, Shirkey wants to give clerks the opportunity to begin processing ballots -- opening and preparing them, but not counting them -- the day before the election.

"And I think that’s a reasonable thing for us to try,” Shirkey said on the radio program.