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LANSING, MI A legislative panel heard testimony Tuesday about a bill package that would change Michigan election law to, among other things, require the secretary of state to update and replace the photo of a person applying for a renewal drivers license and upload the updated photograph to the qualified voter file.

The House Election and Ethics Committee met Tuesday afternoon to hear testimony about several items including House Bills 5585, 5886 and 5887, which are sponsored by Rep. Ann Bollin, R-Brighton.

House Bills 5586 and 5587 also would shorten the period when a person may renew his or her license or ID card by mail, before an in-person renewal visit is required, from 12 years to eight years.

The passage of Proposal 3 in 2018 gave Michigan voters no-reason absentee voting and same-day voter registration.

While advocates of the 2018 ballot proposal view its passage and implementation as a success with residents getting a greater opportunity to register and vote absentee, Republican lawmakers opposed it, arguing the changes would weaken the security of elections.

Having a strong voter turnout should be a common goal. However, with the passage of this proposal, Michigan voters never have to appear before a local clerk to verify their identity, Bollin said. What is concerning is that a voters photo ID may not be updated.

Bollins bills would make it so Michigan law requires an updated photo to be taken every eight years.

Ive heard some concerns about putting it into the QVF (Qualified Voter File), Bollin said, adding that shes also considering submitting photos to the electronic poll book.

Then it would make much easier access, she said. Voters wouldnt necessarily have to pull their photo ID, or clerks would have the photo ID in the clerks office as we move to a lot more voters voting in-person.

The legislation would bring an additional one-time cost to the Department of State to implement changes to the current functionality between its automated Customer and Automotive Record System (CARS) and the Qualified Voter File. There would also be additional ongoing data storage costs to DOS for maintaining digital photo records.

CARS currently transmits text data to the QVF, including name, address, date of birth, gender, and for drivers license recipients, drivers license number and signature. The ability to transmit photographs to the QVF would require additional information technology programming costs.

It is not known at this time what those costs would be, or whether they could be supported with DOSs current ongoing appropriations. The average cost for a state IT project is approximately $300,000, according to a legislative analysis from the House Fiscal Agency.

The House Fiscal Agency analysis states the bills would not have a fiscal impact on city and township clerks offices, but would have indeterminate fiscal impacts on the offices if photograph identification were required for voting in the future. If photographs were required to vote, the bills would provide personnel cost savings to local clerks offices by reducing handling time and staff hourly costs of processing provisional envelope ballots at precinct voting locations and clerks offices.

The bill did not receive a vote Tuesday during the committee meeting.

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Republican voter ID bills would cut license renewal period from 12 to 8 years - MLive.com