A. OSTEGREN CLAIM
Plaintiff Ostegren avers that he was removed from an absent voter counting board. It is true that the Secretary of State has general supervisory control over the conduct of elections. See MCL 168.21; MCL 168.31. However, the day-to-day operation of an absent voter counting board is controlled by the pertinent city or township clerk. See MCL 168.764d. The complaint does not allege that the Secretary of State was a party to or had knowledge of, the alleged exclusion of plaintiff Ostegren from the unnamed absent voter counting board. Moreover, the Court notes that recent guidance from the Secretary of State, as was detailed in matter before this Court in Carra et al v Benson et al, Docket No. 20-000211-MZ, expressly advised local election officials to admit credentialed election challengers, provided that the challengers adhered to face-covering and social-distancing requirements. Thus, allegations regarding the purported conduct of an unknown local election official do not lend themselves to the issuance of a remedy against the Secretary of State.
B. CONNARN AFFIDAVIT
Plaintiffs have submitted what they refer to as “supplemental evidence” in support of their request for relief. The evidence consists of: (1) an affidavit from Jessica Connarn, a designated poll watcher; and (2) a photograph of a handwritten yellow sticky note. In her affidavit, Connarn avers that, when she was working as a poll watcher, she was contacted by an unnamed poll worker who was allegedly “being told by other hired poll workers at her table to change the date the ballot was received when entering ballots into the computer.” She avers that this unnamed poll worker later handed her a sticky note that says “entered receive date as 11/2/20 on 11/4/20.” Plaintiffs contend that this documentary evidence confirms that some unnamed persons engaged in
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