Melvin J. "Butch" Hollowell has been endorsed by the Detroit and Michigan Building and Construction Trades Councils in his bid for Michigan Secretary of State.

"I've visited 150 Secretary of State offices around Michigan to get acquainted with the workers and to see first-hand how they are operating," Hollowell said. "Frankly, I found most of them are running pretty good. But I have a lot of ideas on how to make them even better.

"With this background, once I'm selected and then elected, I'll be ready to roll."

A partner in the Detroit-based law firm Butzel Long, Hollowell, 43, has experience in the areas of public finance, public contracting, real estate, administrative issues, and business and corporate law. As secretary of state, his duties would primarily be to administer state elections and make sure all the tasks associated with secretary of state branches run smoothly.

Two years ago, Hollowell worked as one of the five lawyers on Al Gore's legal team in Florida during the presidential vote-counting dispute. Hollowell obviously has a great interest in history, as he liberally sprinkles quotes from the nation's founding fathers into his talks on the campaign trail.

"I don't want to see what I saw in Florida happen in Michigan," he told Michigan Building Trades Council delegates last August. About 10 percent of the state still uses antiquated metal voting machines, while another 27 percent still use punch cards with the infamous hanging chads. He said he wants to convert the whole state to an optical scanning voting system. "We owe it to the people of Michigan to have the highest technology available," he said.

One other goal of Hollowell's: to make information on the importance of registering to vote and voting part of high school civics curricula.

"Students need to know how precious our right to vote is," he said.