Detroit Free Press: “During a Sunday dinner with the Detroit NAACP, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer vetoed four election bills, the first of dozens expected to land on her desk following the contentious 2020 presidential election and the flurry of legislative activity it has prompted to overhaul voting rules across the country. The measures would have codified current election practices, required election challengers to undergo training and expanded the types of places that could serve as polling locations. Whitmer said that the legislation ‘would have perpetuated the ‘Big Lie’ or made it harder for Michiganders to vote.’ The NAACP Detroit Chapter President, Rev. Dr. Wendell Anthony, applauded Whitmer’s weekend vetoes: ‘She is the governor wherever she is from her desk in Lansing to a dinner at the NAACP. She is still Big Gretch and has the pen to prove it!'”

“All four bills passed with bipartisan support in the Michigan House and some received enough Democratic support to secure the votes needed for a veto override. But Democratic support for the legislation was not as robust in the upper chamber. Sen. Paul Wojno, D-Warren, was the lone Democratic lawmaker in the Michigan Senate to support the measures. He is the the sole Democratic lawmaker who sits on the Senate Elections Committee. Whitmer wrote in a letter stating her objections that legislation that would have banned voting equipment from being connected to the internet was unnecessary and misleading. Electronic pollbooks and tabulators are not connected to the internet when voters and ballots are processed during an election. Another bill would have specified who could access the state’s voter files. A representative from the Secretary of State’s office told a House panel in May that the GOP-introduced bill was based on misinformation that third parties currently have access to the voter files.”