Judge blocks Michigan's primary

A circuit judge in Ingham County, one of the three counties that surround Lansing, has ruled that the January 15th Presidential primary cannot be held. His ruling was based on a technicality that held that a Presidential primary election is somehow a "private" event. Likely, the basis of that ruling revolved around ownership of the lists of people who voted in the election, lists which would go solely to the parties to distribute as they saw fit.

The clear and obvious solution to this would be to release the voting roles to all interested parties; instead, Judge William Collette has sided with the national party powerbrokers and against the citizens of Michigan.

The primary system is broken. If a technicality as to who owns the voting lists is what is going to keep the broken system in place then the leaders of both state parties need to stand up and agree to release the voting roles to the public in order to make it clear that we're talking about a public interest, not a private one.

Judge blocks Michigan's Jan. 15 primary
The Detroit News

LANSING -- An Ingham County Circuit Court judge today ruled that Michigan's Jan. 15th presidential primary cannot be held.

Judge William Collette said the contest is unconstitutional because it allocated public money to be used for a private purpose, which would require a two-thirds cote of the legislature. The law passed this summer establishing the contest didn't pass by a two-thirds vote.

"Clearly there's an injury to the public interest," said Collette.

At issue are the lists with the names of voters who take part in the Jan. 15 balloting. Under the law, voters would have to request one ballot or the other, and the Republican and Democratic parties would take sole ownership of the lists of who voted in each contest.