Communities prepare for first election with early voting

METRO DETROIT — Several communities throughout southeast Michigan are preparing to implement early voting, which allows in-person voting in elections up to nine days prior to Election Day.

Early voting was added into the Michigan Constitution last year after Proposition 2 was passed by voters in a statewide general election.

“With the constitutional amendment, there’s a couple things that changed,” explained Troy Clerk Aileen Dickson. “Early voting is you can walk in during the designated hours to the facility that your municipality is assigned to. Oakland County also has a regional facility near the county building. You get a ballot when you walk in, similar to how you would get a ballot when voting normally. You fill it out and you put it in a tabulator. The difference is that tabulator isn’t going to be totaled until election night, when the polls close. Until then, that tabulator just sits there and holds the results in it until the end of Election Day.”

Oakland County is allowing communities to choose to opt in for early voting for the November election. However, Michigan state law states that all communities must offer early voting as of the Feb. 27, 2024, election.

Troy is among the communities opting to start early voting during this election as opposed to waiting until next year. Dickson said there was a call from many voters for the state to change the rules to allow early voting.

“After Prop 2 was passed, the state now tells us we have to provide it, but even before it was approved in 2022, people wanted to feed their own ballot into tabulators when they absentee voted,” she said. “This will now allow people to do this. They can now do this even if they can’t get away from work on Election Day or if they would have to bring kids along on Election Day and so forth.”

She noted that absentee voting also will be adjusted to conform with the new laws as well.

“For absentee voting, you can either pick it up in person at the clerk’s office or have it mailed to you,” said Dickson. “You fill it out at home and then sign it and return it to the clerk. There is an (Absentee Voter) Counting Board where they are opened and counted. The A.V. Counting Board can preprocess them during bigger elections, where they are processed while sequestered. If not, they are counted on Election Day. Now, since the amendment, if you get an absentee ballot, you can take it to the Early Voting Center and give it to the volunteers so it can be put through the tabulator in person (if you wish). This way you can ensure it is opened and counted by the tabulator and not the A.V. Counting Board.”

While Oakland County clerks prepare for early voting in the near future, Macomb County clerks set their sights on the 2024 primaries as the start of early in-person voting on the east side.

“In Mount Clemens, and I think for the majority of Macomb County, it is going to begin with the presidential primary in 2024,” said Cathleen Martin, clerk for the city of Mount Clemens. “Early voting is only required for statewide and federal elections. (For) city elections, clerks are not required to have early voting, but I know that I will in Mount Clemens.”

Martin says several communities are taking part in pilot programs for elections later this year but is unaware of any Macomb County communities taking part in the program.

Right now many Macomb County communities are determining where their early voting sites will be, typically located at or close to city hall.

“For Mount Clemens, this is a central location,” Martin said. “Plus we have me and my deputy clerk here. It would be either here or one of the precincts. It’s just the best choice to have it here at City Hall.”

While Martin is aware a number of communities in the county wish to begin early voting this year, the training and technology still need to be sorted out. Training is expected to be carried out prior to the 2024 primaries.

One major difference between early and absentee voting is the inability to spoil an early-cast ballot.

“Once you put your ballot in the tabulator, that’s it,” Martin said. “We cannot pin it to you anymore … At that point there’s no tie to the voter; there’s nothing to identify a voter to a ballot once it goes into the tabulator because the stub is ripped off and they’re all just in there together.”

Coordinating with other communities and the county allows for local municipalities to cut their costs for providing early voting.

“The majority of the funding is a grant that the county is receiving from the state to cover supplies and equipment and to also cover some of the poll worker pay. The rest of the hourly rate is split by Clawson and Troy. I had budgeted about $100,000 without county help, because it’s $18 per hour, for eight hours a day for nine days for the staff plus the cost of the equipment. The money we do have to pay (with the partnership) is coming out of the city’s general fund and this election, so Troy’s out of pocket will be less than $5,000.”

Dickson noted that there are many people in the state who are concerned with election integrity and wants the public to know that all precautions are being taken by municipalities to ensure ballots remain secure and tampering is impossible.

“Since 2020, we have operated the Absentee Counting Board out of the same rooms we will be operating the Early Voting Center in,” she said. “I feel very comfortable working with Brian Goul, our recreation director. We have a very secure area that is cordoned off so employees of the community center and the public aren’t allowed to enter the corridor outside the room. There are gates and doors that are locked. No one is getting in that area during the entire election process. They are only opened when voting is going on. Each bag that ballots go in has a serial number; we have to record how many ballots are in each bag and how many ballots were tabulated to ensure all of our numbers match up at the end of each day.”

She also invited the public to come in and ask questions or volunteer for the election so they can get a clearer idea as to how these safety measures work.

“If anybody has any questions or if they have any scenarios they want to run by us, they can call the clerk’s office,” said Dickson. “Instead of sitting there not knowing how something works or getting misinformation, we invite them to hear from us to talk about how things work. In the Troy community, they can email me at troymi.gov/elections. They can call us at (248) 524-3317 as well.”