[Long post, please read]
@elonmusk weirdly took the time to Google the middle name of
@JocelynBenson, but here are some things he somehow didn't bother to try to learn. He could have easily found a lot of facts here --
michigan.gov/sos/elections/eโฆ:
1. No, MI does not have more active reg'd voters than people. It has a very high reg rate, but it's not over 100%. 7.9M voting age population. 7.2M active reg'd voters. There are hundreds of thousands of unregistered eligible citizens in MI.
2. Inactive records are NOT reg'd voters. 1.2M MI records are flagged for removal. They are voters marked for cancellation, and hardly any of them vote, only when someone has been improperly marked for cancellation. EVERY SINGLE VOTER in MI still needs to show voter ID when they vote.
3. Inactive records are ALWAYS removed AFTER an election, as the failure to vote in the second straight fed'l election is the legal trigger for removal. Every state does this (except for 6 states exempted from the NVRA). It's fed'l law.
4. Large numbers of inactive records is a sign of STRONG list maintenance practices. MI has 1.2M inactive records. Most records cannot be removed before first being inactive for at least two federal election cycles. It's fed'l law.
5. Musk's new home state of TX has well over 2 million inactive records on their lists (they call it a "suspense list"), close to double the number in MI. TX's list maintenance isn't as strong as MI, per capita, but it's quite robust. These inactive records will remain on that list until AFTER the election in TX, and in MI, and in the rest of the states, with those who qualify then removed. It's fed'l law.
Perhaps it's not surprising Musk is completely lost when it comes to how elections work and what's legally required, and he appears to have his own election law problems today that he may be trying to distract from (see 52 USC 10307(c) and the crime of offering anything of value (like a chance to win $1M) in exchange voting or registering. Election off'ls and experts, incl many Republicans, have tried for months to engage him, to get him to look at the disinformation he's spreading with critical thinking, to no avail. And as we stand here today, there is nobody doing more to delegitimize US elections, doing the work of our adversaries in Russia, China, and Iran, than the owner of this platform. And now, he's painting a target on specific election officials, who are busy trying to do their jobs, on the eve of the election.