A tiff between Allegan County Clerk Bob Genetski and Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson has Dorr Township Clerk Debbie Sewers puzzled about how to handle the upcoming August primary and November general elections.

Genetski, in an Allegan County News & Gazette story this week, charged that Benson’s actions in mailing Michigan’s 7.7 million voters absentee ballot applications is illegal. Genetski said he has indicated his position to all municipal clerks in the county.

President Donald Trump, in a recent tweet, also has charged Benson’s making vote by mail applications so widely available is not legal and has threatened to withhold federal funding support as a result.

Trump and apparently Genetski are adamantly opposed to efforts to make voting by mail easy to do. Many Republican Party colleagues are insisting voters show up at the polls instead to cast their ballots.

Benson, a Democrat, has explained she wants people to be encouraged to vote from home because of health concerns with the COVID-19 virus. However, Trump, Genetski and state GOP officials have insisted her move is politically motivated and illegal.

Jake Rollow, a spokesman for the Michigan Secretary of State’s office, has maintained that Trump’s tweet is “false” and that “applications are mailed nearly every election cycle by both major parties and countless advocacy and nonpartisan organizations. Just like them, we have full authority to mail applications to ensure voters know they have the right to vote safely by mail.”

Benson also tweeted in response to trump that GOP secretaries of state in Iowa, Georgia, Nebraska and West Virginia have also sent out applications for absentee ballots.

Sewers appeared to be concurring with Genetski Thursday evening when she commented, “You are not allowed to send applications to vote to someone who hasn’t requested it.”

The clerk told Township Board colleagues that the number of local voters now registered as permanent vote by mail constituents has nearly doubled, from more than 500 to more than 900 since the March 10 presidential primary. Some of that was because of the Coronavirus threat, but some also was a result of a November state-wide 2018 ballot issue that was passed with 66.9 percent approval.