Early voting. Absentee. Election Day votes. How ballots are counted in Michigan

Washington — Even with in-person early voting, a brand new option in Michigan this year, the fundamental procedure for processing all types of ballots remains unchanged. 

Election officials count the number of ballots cast throughout voting, but the contents of the ballots remain hidden until the polls close on Tuesday. That is true for absentee ballots, in-person early voting and ballots cast on Election Day at a polling precinct.

“Nobody knows any of the results of how somebody voted,” said Anna Soik, Alpena City clerk. "I’m working in quantities up until 8 p.m. on Election Day. And then all the reports are run on the tabulators, and then we get results."

Clerks around the state, after much preparation and staff training, spent nine days over the past two weeks holding in-person early voting for the first time ahead of Tuesday's presidential primaries. The final step of counting the votes will be familiar, though some changes meant to expedite the count have taken effect.

The procedure for counting in-person early ballots is most similar to that of traditional Election Day ballots. 

"It's exactly like voting on Election Day," Soik said.

In both cases, voters insert their completed ballots into tabulators, which log their choices. Election officials then, after the polls have closed at 8 p.m. (polls in four counties in the western Upper Peninsula in the Central Time Zone are open until 9 p.m. Eastern time), generate reports from the machines that reveal the number of votes for each candidate or ballot measure.

That is distinct from absentee ballots, where election workers feed the ballots into the tabulators.

Until this year, election officials could not check ballots and tabulate them before Election Day. That delayed the reporting of election results in 2020.

But under a new law that took effect earlier this month, ballot pre-processing was allowed to begin over a week ago in cities and townships with more than 5,000 residents. Smaller municipalities were allowed to pre-process and tabulate absentee ballots on Monday.

"It was a welcome change for all the clerks," Macomb County Clerk Anthony Forlini said.

Election administrators are hopeful the change will generate election results faster after the polls close at 8 p.m. on the day of an election. The Legislature adopted the new election laws and procedures as part of Proposal 2, a 2022 ballot issue that expanded voting rights and won 60% approval from Michigan voters.

Under previous rules, election officials were far more limited in their ability to pre-process absentee votes before Election Day. Clerks in larger municipalities were only allowed to open a mail ballot's outer envelope, which contains the secrecy sleeve that holds the ballot, and check the ballot number on the return envelope in a bid to save time processing votes on Election Day.

"I considered it to be a waste of time," Westland Clerk Richard LeBlanc said.

Because officials were not allowed to feed the ballots into tabulators before Election Day, few municipalities participated in pre-processing absentee ballots in 2022.

Even though ballots are now tabulated ahead of time, their contents remain hidden until after the polls close — just as they do for in-person early and Election Day ballots.

LeBlanc emphasized that point. He said no results from absentee ballots are generated from tabulator machines until every last ballot drop box in Westland has been checked.

With the raft of rule changes ahead of the primary, clerks had to make sure staff were properly trained on the new but familiar processes.

"It is a transparent and secure system. We swear in our election officials," LeBlanc said. "As I swore them in and put them to work ... , I said, 'There have been some changes to laws governing absentee voting county boards, but one element that has not changed is that you are still under oath.'"

Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said during a Monday press conference in Detroit that she expects final, unofficial election results by noon Wednesday. The Detroit News will publish live, partial results as they become available after the polls close Tuesday night.

Benson also said more than 927,000 people have completed absentee ballots, and an additional 78,000 cast ballots via in-person early voting. The combined total of those two — over a million votes — is 13% higher than pre-election turnout in the 2020 presidential primary, according to Benson.

About 1% of registered voters cast an in-person early ballot. Turnout was especially slow the first weekend before picking up somewhat through the end of the nine-day early voting period.

Some municipalities had just a handful of voters cast ballots in person early.

As of Friday, only three of Pleasant Ridge’s 2,468 registered voters had cast ballots through early voting, city Clerk Kersten Emsley said Monday. More voters may have participated Saturday and Sunday.

Absentee voting continued to grow as a popular option for voters, though some in Michigan still distrust it after current Republican frontrunner and then-President Donald Trump raised doubts about its security in 2020.

Emsley said some residents in her Detroit suburb still refuse to vote absentee because they think their votes won't get counted.

"I don’t know where they are getting it from,” Emsley said. “I’m working very hard for somebody who is not counting those votes.”

More:In-person early voting off to slow start across Michigan

Ahead of Election Day, clerks around the state have said the early voting period has gone mostly smoothly, though they are tired from the new setup.

"This feels like the election that has gone on forever," Alpena's Soik said. "Because there has been so much training, and new things that we had to learn, and then implementing all that, preparing the equipment. ... It's just been it's been very taxing on the clerks and staff, and I think we're all just ready for Election Day to be done."

Canton Township Clerk Michael Siegrist added this at Monday's press conference: "I've been a clerk since 2016. I have known nothing but change and some challenges. Every election brings new challenges."

"But what is clear after the massive effort to implement early voting and all of the reforms of Proposal 2 is that voters, poll workers and clerks are going to be excited about this new option," Siegrist said of early voting.

Benson thanked the clerks and other election staff for their work during the early voting period.

"It was a lot of work under tight timelines, but our clerks got the job done and, in the end, it is the voters of Michigan and our democracy that benefit as a result of their hard work," Benson said.

Michael Davis Jr., executive director of Promote The Vote Michigan, also thanked election officials. His organization helped lead the Proposal 2 campaign to establish in-person early voting via ballot initiative in 2022.

"It wasn't easy," Davis said, "but their dedication means that voting is that much more accessible for all voters of Michigan."

gschwab@detroitnews.com

@GrantSchwab

Staff Writer Myesha Johnson contributed.