Michigan lawmakers missed 3,072 roll call votes last year. | Pixabay
Michigan lawmakers missed 3,072 roll call votes last year. | Pixabay
Between Michigan's 110 representatives and 38 senators, a total of 3,072 roll call votes were missed in the 2020 session, according to the Missed Votes Report, compiled by MichiganVotes.org editor Jack McHugh.
The report, a Mackinac Center for Public Policy project, found that 15 representatives and three senators missed at least 50 votes in 2020. On other hand, 15 senators and 54 representatives didn't miss a single vote in the 2020 session.
Only 768 roll calls were missed in 2019.
The higher rate of missed votes can be blamed in part on the COVID-19 pandemic, with multiple lawmakers in quarantine as the pandemic progressed.
“The number of missed votes could have been a lot higher given the epidemic,” McHugh said, according to the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. “Legislative leaders and members had to overcome many obstacles to schedule and show up for daily sessions.”
MichiganVotes.org covered the first legislative session during the 2001-2002 session, in which Michigan lawmakers failed to cast a roll call vote a whopping 21,162 times.
Reasons for a legislator missing a roll call vote could include health, family or personal issues -- or a conflict of interest.
The Mackinac Center recommends that if voters are curious why their representatives missed votes, they should simply ask rather than making assumptions about the cause.
Alerts Sign-up