Judge scolds SOS Ruth Johnson on citizenship issue

In case you missed it, the written opinion striking down the citizenship check-boxes on voter application forms which was delivered by U.S. District Judge Paul Borman on Wednesday didn’t simply rule against Secretary of State Ruth Johnson, in it he scolded Johnson for: making convoluted arguments in court documents, ignoring Gov. Rick Snyder’s July veto of legislation requiring a citizenship box, creating possible delays at the polls, and allowing a two-tiered system of voter requirements that presents constitutional issues.

In particular, the federal judge, who issued an injunction from the bench last Friday, took the unusual step of using exclamation points – twice – in the text of his 46-page opinion. Johnson possibly had already irritated the judge by arguing that, even though she was the sole defendant targeted in the court case, there was no reason that she should have to appear in court.

When Johnson, a Holly Republican, tried to counter legal arguments made by local clerks and voting rights advocates, she asserted that the secretary of state has the power to alter the application forms that voters fill out at the polls, but not the applications for absentee voters, the judge appeared miffed.

“That argument won’t track!” he wrote.

Borman warned that a November election with the check-off box could produce a “parade of horribles” because approximately 5 million Michigan voters are expected to go to the polls, they will face a potentially confusing bedsheet ballot, and they will be scrutinized by 30,000 poll challengers from the Republican and Democratic parties.

Judge Borman

Though Johnson had changed her position, saying that the checkoff box would be voluntary, the judge chastised the secretary of state for creating a messy situation: It is likely that many challengers will challenge voters who do not fill in the citizenship check box, even though they do not need to fill it out to get a ballot – because the challengers don’t know that voters are not required to fill it in!”

There’s that second exclamation point.

The judge had more to say in great detail -- about Johnson’s mismanagement of the check-off box confusion on the August primary Election Day and her subsequent failure to deal forthrightly with the mutiny against the citizenship box by local clerks – but I think it’s safe to say that the secretary of state never wants to appear in Borman’s court again.