LANSING, Mich. (WZMQ) – Michigan Lieutenant Governor Garlin Gilchrist, the Democratic nominee for Secretary of State, is making his case to Upper Peninsula voters ahead of November.
Gilchrist said his run for the office grew out of a conversation with a voter in Wexford County who worried about federal threats to voting access. Describing what she told him, Gilchrist said, “A woman in northern Michigan told me, I need you to protect that system of voting so we can use that tool and have it available and make life better.”
Gilchrist has centered his campaign on protecting voter privacy, pointing to the volume of personal data the Secretary of State’s office holds and his own background as a former cybersecurity tester at Microsoft. Laying out the stakes as he sees them, Gilchrist said, “The Secretary of State’s office knows a lot about people, where you live, what kind of car you drive, whether you voted in previous elections. That information, if it was in the wrong hands, could be used to hurt people, to target people, to surveil people.”
On the question of non-citizens voting, an issue that gained attention this year after a citizens-only voting ballot petition failed to qualify, Gilchrist pointed to existing law. Addressing concerns about the state’s safeguards, he said, “It is already illegal. When it happens, people are held accountable for it. We have a system in place.”
Gilchrist said he’s made 17 trips to the Upper Peninsula since becoming lieutenant governor and plans to keep making the trip as the campaign continues. Watch Sophia Murphy’s full interview with Gilchrist below.
