In the Spirit of Public Debate . . . Seth Keshel Responds to Left-Leaning Votebeat Article

Keshel does the math.

By Seth Keshel, MFEI Special Advisor

September 16, 2025

Votebeat, an organization that touts its non-partisan reporting credentials, published an article authored by Jen Fifield and Carter Walker earlier this month panning the Department of Justice’s actions to gather state voter registration data and its push to expedite or enforce maintenance of state voter rolls.

Fifield and Walker suggest clearing the voter rolls of deceased registrants (or those otherwise ineligible) is simply “good practice” but use the majority of the piece to defend delays in voter roll maintenance and the tendency of some states to leave ineligible names on the list indefinitely.

Michigan received specific attention:

The U.S. Census Bureau’s American Communities Survey is currently our best measure of population changes from year to year, Fowler said. But the uncertainty in the national population count is about 10 million residents, he said — roughly equal to the population of Michigan.

Some use the disparities between the numbers to cast doubt on the accuracy of elections and raise alarm about voter fraud, such as Elon Musk with his misleading claim that Michigan had “more registered voters than eligible citizens.” His numbers included inactive voters as if they were eligible voters. But before those voters could cast a ballot, they would have to correct their voting record to prove eligibility, most commonly by showing documentation proving they still live in the jurisdiction.

With potentially inaccurate census data used an excuse, it is important to clarify how troubling Michigan’s current data are. According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2024 estimates, Michigan has a population of 10,140,459.  As of September 9, 2025, the Michigan Voter Information Center reports a total of 8,252,158 total registered voters, with that number making no distinction between active or inactive voters.

A simple calculation — 8,252,158 divided by 10,140,459 — informs us that 81.4% of Michigan’s population is registered to vote. Votebeat’s commentary on the matter suggests it is trivial to criticize the government of a given state for publishing numbers showing more total registrations than possible, and we should accept the rolls being bloated as they are and simply trust that no votes are being cast by corrupt actors on behalf of so-called “inactive” voters. 

Michigan’s voting-eligible (18 and older) population is no more than 80% of its total population, meaning that if every eligible voter were registered (8,112,367) under the official population of Michigan, the total voter roll would still 139,791 higher than is possible or lawful.

The following data, since it is from 2023, about non-citizens and naturalization will skew this report on the lenient side. According to USA Facts, roughly 738,000 Michigan residents (including illegal aliens) are foreign-born.  Michigan had roughly 421,500 naturalized citizens in 2023, who are eligible to vote provided they aren’t currently serving a prison sentence.  There were 32,778 Michiganders serving one at the end of 2024 who shouldn’t be on an active voter roll until completing the sentence.

Active Voters	8,252,158
Non-citizens not naturalized	(316,500)
Serving prison sentences	(32,778)
NOT MORE THAN eligible voters in Michigan	7,902,880

With 7,310,017 active registrations estimated by the state, Michigan has 92.5% of the available voter pool in the state actively registered to vote, or 4.5% more registrations on the full list than are possibly eligible, meaning the full list sits a minimum of 349,278 over the maximum active registration capacity.

In total, 72.1% of Michigan’s total population is registered on the active voter roll.  To demonstrate how ludicrous this is, here is how this compares to the voter rolls of the other two states making up the “big three” industrial battlegrounds of the Trump era.

State	Population 2024 estimate	Active Voters	Percentage of Population as Active Voters
Pennsylvania	13,078,751	8,354,397	63.9%
Pennsylvania would have 1,072,458 more active registered voters if set equal to Michigan’s 72.1% rate, or more than are registered in Philadelphia County.
Wisconsin	5,960,975	3,621,754	60.8%
Wisconsin would have 673,590 more active registered voters if set equal to Michigan’s 72.1% rate, or more registered voters than are registered in Milwaukee and Brown Counties combined

Notably, while Wisconsin only publishes active voter statistics, Pennsylvania also keeps track of the entire roll, which sits at 8,875,372.Pennsylvania’s numbers suggest 520,975 inactive voters on state rolls, in a state exceeding Michigan’s population by nearly three million residents. Michigan admits to 942,141 inactive registrations.

Votebeat, in siding with government excuses, neglects the obvious need for public accountability. The governments of states with corrupted voter rolls bear the burden for ensuring trust in the electoral process, not the citizens who point out the obvious flaws in it.

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