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Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson speaks during a virtual press conference held in response to House Republicans’ resolution holding Benson in contempt. May 22, 2025 | Screenshot

A corrective action plan, a new “go live” approval process and additional project management support are among steps being taken by the Michigan Department of State as it seeks to correct issues with its new campaign finance reporting system, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson told reporters on Friday.

Benson, in a virtual press call, detailed solutions the department was crafting after a disastrous launch of the $9 million Michigan Information Transparency Network project, or MiTN, which replaced its aging but heavily-used and mostly user-friendly campaign finance reporting system.

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She also said department staff were working around the clock, until 11:30 p.m. on some nights and on weekends, to get the system back on track and improve it along the way.

“We’ve had hard conversations with our team about how this happened, the issues, the snafus, how we would move forward,” Benson said. “I am personally ensuring that we can do this consistently with our team over the months ahead. We are making improvements, not just to the system, but also internally to our own testing, training and launch processes, so that we can use this experience to continue to, on all of [the] other work that we’re doing to modernize systems within our department, increase those efficiencies ever more.”

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The rollout of the new system caused delays in reporting, and the overall functionality of the website was bothersome for many users, including news reporters, political watchdogs and nonprofit groups who rely on access to campaign finance information to better track how politicians spend campaign money and who gives it to them.

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Meanwhile, scrutiny mounted last month from Republican lawmakers in charge of the state House of Representatives, who have separately requested hordes of information on election manuals and other materials through the House Oversight Committee. That includes a lawsuit filed by House Republicans against Benson over a subpoena related to the request, and an effort to impeach Benson over the spat and other grievances.

Christina Anderson, Benson’s chief of staff, testified on May 20 before a joint meeting of the House Oversight Committee and the House Subcommittee on General Government, where she apologized for the system issues and vowed improvements.

Benson on Friday gave an overview of what was being done from May through June.

The secretary of state said the department has increased the frequency of communication with users over bugs and issues and increased training. The department has conducted additional user research to better understand and prioritize improvements, and devoted additional project management and testing support from the Michigan Department of Technology, Management and Budget.

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As Anderson alluded to in May, Benson said Friday that it also has a corrective action plan in place with Tyler Technologies, the contracted vendor on the project. Benson said Tyler was processing refunds for any downtime the department has experienced on the website and has made clear that the department would suspend payments until the system is working as expected.

A new process to approve when aspects of the system go online was also established to ensure thorough vetting before new aspects launch.

On the technical side, Benson said four main improvements were made via two new software updates between May 31 and June 17.

Additional data fields were implemented to align candidate and lawmaker forms as outlined in statute, and the public search function was also improved. Users can now search by contributor information, view migrated committee notifications, and fixes were made to lobby search functions to include searching by office title.

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An improved filer experience was implemented, Benson said, fixing known issues with committee module import information and data display fields within the program.

Other improvements dealt with personal finance disclosure data both for filers and the data itself.

On the personal finance disclosure system, the department has a July 13 deadline to launch and improve that system, less than two weeks before the July 25 filing deadline. To date, the department has received information from 159 filers, with 47 submissions through the new network and 112 via email submissions or PDF files.

Benson said the department has added additional training videos to the system for filers, additional after-hours phone support, increased email communication and resolved a handful of issues directly with filers.

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System improvements for the July personal finance system release include a campaign finance filing summary report, which was missing when the state transitioned to the new system, usability improvements for filers and additional improvements to the public search module.

As updates continue, the department is also conducting a usability study with eMichigan, the state’s online government services platform, to drive long-term user experience improvements, which is a work in progress.

Benson also plans to testify before the House Oversight Committee on Tuesday, June 24, which she announced in a letter sent Tuesday to state Rep. Jay DeBoyer (R-Clay), the committee’s chair.

The letter, written by Anderson, notes that Benson was “pleased” to accept the committee’s request for testimony on MiTN improvements, but noted the expectation was that questions would focus only on improvements to the new system and not other matters considering the ongoing litigation between House Republicans and Benson.