AUGUST 27--The letters began arriving this month at scores of municipal clerk's offices across Michigan, from large cities like Ann Arbor to small communities in the Upper Peninsula.
Citing the state’s Freedom of Information Act, the letters requested paper copies of every ballot cast[1] in the respective jurisdictions “in connection with the November 8, 2016 election for President of the United States.” The request not only sought copies of election day, absentee, and provisional ballots, but also “rejected or spoiled ballots” and copies of the envelopes in which absentee ballots were sent 
(with “a visible image of the space for the voter’s signature”).
In all, the two-page FOIA letter detailed 11 separate categories of voting records that were to be provided by government officials. The letter asked that responsive records be “organized by precinct for all precincts in your jurisdiction.”
The FOIA letter rattled many of its recipients, who viewed the expansive request as overly burdensome, especially as they are preparing for the consequential November 6 midterm election.
The timing of the FOIA struck many clerks as odd: 21 months had passed since Donald Trump eked out a 10,000-vote victory over Hillary Clinton to capture Michigan’s 16 electoral votes (more than 4.5 million votes were cast statewide). However, several clerks interviewed noted that the FOIAs arrived weeks before Michigan’s records retention rules would allow them to begin destroying the 2016 election records.
The FOIA request quickly became the hottest topic on the online message board of the Michigan Association of Municipal Clerks. Recipients of the FOIA discussed the difficulty of reproducing ballots that were larger than their copier’s glass scanning bed. Others commented on the unprecedented and “unwieldy” scope of the FOIA. “I am a