Clerk Byrum On the Issues
Protecting Your Right to Vote
You should never have to choose between your health and your right to vote. Clerk Byrum has been a leader on the issue of voting by mail since she became Ingham County’s Clerk.
After the Passage of Proposal 3 in 2018, Clerk Byrum has promoted it widely and gave voters direct access to sign up by proactively reaching out. As a result, thousands more voters are able to vote by mail today.
With the outbreak of COVID-19, many voters are feeling concerned about congregating at their polling places. Clerk Byrum advocated to the Governor send every qualified registered voter a ballot application, something the Secretary of State then did.
Every voter has an inalienable right to vote and vote safely, and Clerk Byrum has consistently stood up for those rights.
Securing Our Elections
With attempted foreign interference in our elections more prevalent than ever before, it has never been more critical to maintain highly secure elections.
Clerk Byrum is a recognized leader on this issue and was nominated to the Michigan Election Security Advisory Commission in 2019. Clerk Byrum has ensured that Ingham County’s elections are among the safest in the nation.
Byrum trains elections inspectors for Ingham County ahead of each election, and ensures that the best security practices are explained in detail and that the workers are prepared for any potential issue.
The biggest safety decision Ingham County can make is to continue to rely on paper ballots rather than electronic voting as paper ballots cannot be hacked and can always be recounted in case of irregularities. In 2016, Byrum successfully completed a recount of the 2016 Presidential Election and the usage of paper ballots ensured that this was possible.
Advocating for Equal Rights
Clerk Byrum has been a proud advocate of equal rights throughout her career in public service. She was a champion of the constitutional right for same sex couples to be married in civil ceremonies. When Federal Judge Bernard Friedman ruled in Deboer v Snyder, she was the first County Clerk in Michigan to perform a legal marriage ceremony of a same sex couple on March 22, 2014. She was proud to be able to legally acknowledge the partnerships of 57 same sex couples that day.
In the years that followed, she has performed countless ceremonies for same sex couples. She is proud that we have come this far in acknowledging the right to marry the person we love but there is still a long way to go towards equality.
In 2015, she was asked to be the Grand Marshal of the Lansing Pride Parade.
Clerk Byrum is the primary registration official for birth records, marriage licenses, and death certificates, among many other records. She has been a clear advocate of updating the record templates so that they are more inclusive. When Marriage Equality became the law of the land, Byrum was at the forefront pushing the State to update its marriage license template, so that it was possible to have a same sex couple recognize their sex on the license itself.
No Reason Absentee Voting
Clerk Byrum was an early proponent of No Reason Absentee Voting. The people of Michigan passed Proposal 3 of 2018 to the Michigan Constitution in support of this fundamental right.
Since passage, Clerk Byrum has taken an active role in promoting the execution of this policy by encouraging voters to sign up for the Permanent Absent Voter Ballot Application List. Voters may sign up for this list and will receive an application for an Absentee Ballot before each election.
Clerk Byrum has been solely responsible for adding nearly 10,000 voters to the Permanent Absent Voter Ballot Application list.
In the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak, it is even more important that voters have the option to vote by mail. Voters will be understandably concerned about physically going to the polls and will be seeking other options to access and vote their ballot. Clerk Byrum’s actions have made that accessibility a possibility.
Ensuring Your Right to Register to Vote
Ingham County Clerk Barb Byrum has been a leader on a citizen’s fundamental right to exercise their right to vote. Clerk Byrum has held dozens of voter registration drives throughout her two terms as County Clerk and registered thousands of voters.
In the wake of the passage of Proposal 3 of 2018 to the Michigan Constitution, voters are allowed to register and vote on the same day. During the Presidential Primary that occurred in 2020, Byrum deployed 20 staff and volunteers to the East Lansing City Clerk’s office to assist with over 2,000 voters who wished to register (or change their registered address) and vote on election day.
Holding Government Accountable
Clerk Byrum believes that the role of the Clerk is not only to administer elections and maintain vital records, but also to be a good steward of the public trust. To that end, she has gone above and beyond to ensure that county taxpayers’ money is being spent appropriately.
She also has acted as a watchdog when county administration has needed to be checked. In 2015, she discovered that the County IT director was accepting kickbacks and worked with county administration to see that it was stopped and the director removed.
In 2019, when it was discovered that the County Health Insurance Plan was not allowing equal access to all medications, she blew the whistle and ensured that county employees got the medicine that they needed. Later, she would join the Health In All Policies committee to ensure that it would never happen again.
Promoting Military and Overseas Civilian Voting
Clerk Byrum is a nationally recognized expert on Military and Overseas Voting. In 2019, she was asked to join the Overseas Voting Initiative, a partnership between the Council on State Governments and the Federal Voting Assistance Program, a subsidiary of the US Department of Defense.
She has participated in panel discussions, work sessions, and on-site audits of critical election infrastructure to determine and disseminate best practices to better enable the right to vote for our Armed Service Members and Overseas Citizens.
Protecting Fairness through Redistricting
Clerk Byrum has been a proponent of the Independent Redistricting Commission since her days in the Legislature. As the Ranking Democrat and Vice-Chair of the Redistricting and Elections Commission from 2010-2012, she is keenly aware of how partisan redistricting led to legislative districts that were unfair and did not reflect the true will of the voters.
She stood with local clerks, fellow County Clerks, and the Secretary of State to support the Independent Redistricting Commission initiative and was pleased to see it pass. Since passage, thousands of excellent applicants have applied and will redraw the local districts following the completion of the decennial census.
“When East Lansing needed help on Election Day, I knew we could count on Clerk Byrum to drop everything to assist. She deployed the full resources of her office and more to accommodate voters, and I will forever be thankful.”
— Fmr East Lansing Mayor Pro-Tem Aaron Stephens