Macomb County clerk raises concerns about noncitizens in jury pool and voter rolls

Clerk says internal review found hundreds of noncitizens in jury pool, calls for improved citizenship verification

MACOMB COUNTY, Mich. - The Macomb County clerk says recent internal reviews have uncovered potential issues involving noncitizens appearing in jury pools and, in some cases, Michigan voter rolls, raising concerns about jury integrity and election administration.

Macomb County Clerk and Register of Deeds Anthony G. Forlini said his office discovered the issue while reviewing prospective jurors for the 16th Judicial Circuit Court. According to Forlini, jury pools in Michigan are largely drawn from the state’s driver’s license database maintained by the Secretary of State.

“The jury pool includes noncitizens who are ineligible for jury duty,” Forlini said in a statement released Monday.

Forlini said his office found that noncitizens were appearing in the jury pool because citizenship status was not always flagged in the Secretary of State’s database. He described the number of cases identified as “alarming.”

If you are not yet a paid subscriber please become one to help support my independent journalism. I can’t do this work without you. I am giving you stories the legacy media won’t show you.

“Noncitizens are coming through at an alarming rate,” Forlini said. “Frequently noncitizens slip through because citizenship was not flagged in the Secretary of State database.”

Forlini said he directed staff to cross check the jury pool with the state’s Qualified Voter File, known as the QVF, which tracks voter registration information. He said the review uncovered 239 noncitizens in the jury pool over a four month period.

According to Forlini, 14 of those individuals also appeared on voter rolls at some point in time. He said the QVF showed instances where some of those noncitizens may have voting histories.

“One in particular appears to have voted several times,” Forlini said, adding that such cases could potentially lead to felony charges.

Michigan law requires U.S. citizenship to serve on a jury and to vote in state and federal elections.

Forlini said the issue stems in part from the state’s automatic voter registration process, which registers individuals to vote when they apply for a driver’s license unless they opt out. Applicants are asked to confirm citizenship by checking a box on the form.

“If the checkbox is checked ‘yes’ for ‘I am a United States citizen,’ the form is processed even if the applicant is not a U.S. citizen or does not understand the question,” Forlini said.

He said Michigan does not currently use a federal citizenship database or other systematic federal verification at the time of voter registration, unlike some other states.

Forlini said language barriers may also play a role in the issue, with some applicants potentially not understanding what they are signing.

“If this is not addressed, we risk compromising our jury trials and our elections,” Forlini said.

He said one possible solution would be improved data sharing between state and federal systems to allow citizenship status to be verified more reliably.

“One possibility is to take advantage of new breakthroughs in linking several databases, where one database is able to flag another database for actual citizenship verification,” Forlini said.

The Michigan Secretary of State’s office was not immediately available for comment on the clerk’s findings.