Students may have an easier time voting if new electoral reforms introduced this year are passed by the Michigan Legislature.

The reforms focus on opening absentee voting to more citizens to increase their access to the polls. Currently absentee ballots can only be issued to voters who are unable to vote in person. The bills focus on opening absentee voting to more citizens to increase their access to the polls but can not change the federal requirement that first-time voters that register through the mail must visit their clerk’s office with identification before being able to vote absentee.

State Rep. Chris Ward (R-Brighton) introduced a bill last week that would allow voters to vote absentee without a reason. His bill would also allow citizens to cast their ballots at a polling site seven days prior to an election.

“With people so busy commuting and running their kids around they get too busy to vote,” Ward said. Extending the election period from a day to a week would allow busy citizens a greater opportunity to vote, he added.

State Sen. Liz Brater (D-Ann Arbor) has not proposed early voting, but she introduced a bill in January that would allow absentee voting through the mail without providing a reason as well. An accompanying bill that she proposed would allow voters to register and vote on the same day.

“Our election law is much too complex, it seems designed to deter people from voting,” Brater said. “We need to overhaul our election law to make it easier and encourage participation.”

Last year, 42 percent of college students nationwide voted absentee — second only to military voters as the largest group of absentee voters, according to a study by Harvard’s Institute of Politics.

Michigan Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land, a Republican, endorsed Ward’s bill because it charges people with a misdemeanor if they make false statements on the ballot, according to Land’s spokeswoman Kelly Chesney.

Brater said fear of voter fraud in Michigan is a “red herring” coming from people who oppose efforts to expand voter participation.

“There’s virtually no history of voter fraud in Michigan,” Brater said.

Chesney disagreed, saying, there is “concrete evidence” of voter fraud, citing charges levied against River Rouge resident Randy Durham in 2002 by Attorney General Mike Cox who said he possessed unauthorized absentee ballots, some of which were illegally marked. Durham pleaded guilty, but his case is still pending.

Brater said the Qualified Voter File system that lists all registered voters “makes it less likely there will be voting fraud.” In 2001, the National Commission on Federal Election Reform — co-chaired by former presidents Republican Gerald Ford and Democrat Jimmy Carter — reached a similar conclusion, saying the system passed the test of the 2000 elections with “flying colors” and was an “outstanding model” of a voter identification system.

Brater’s reforms have languished in committee since January and she was not sure if or when her bill would be brought to a vote. Ward said he would like to have his bill brought before the House by June.