June 23—TRAVERSE CITY — Election preparation in the region is going well, Antrim County Clerk Sheryl Guy said Friday.
“It’s pretty routine.”
County clerks across the region are preparing for Aug. 6, when voters will decide a series of primaries and a slew of ballot proposals amid new voting procedures and a divided population.
Absentee ballots will be sent to voters at the end of this month.
Guy, a target of threats and calls to resign after misinformation about Antrim County’s 2020 election results, is not running for re-election and the Aug. 6 ballot will include a five-way Republican battle to replace her.
Guy said voters appear to be getting involved and informed ahead of the primaries.
“We’ve had a lot of questions from voters about the candidates – people they’re not very familiar with. I want my voters to be informed. It is critical in this election.”
GREAT TRAVERSE COUNTY
Ballots for the Aug. 6 primary have arrived, and Grand Traverse County Clerk Bonnie Scheele said local clerks should mail them out before the end of the month.
It’s not too late to sign up to get one too. Scheele said voters can request one from their local clerks through Aug. 2, the Friday before the primary.
First, the ballots and the machines that count them will undergo a series of checks to ensure both are ready for the election, Scheele said.
City, village and town clerks will conduct preliminary accuracy checks, going through a long list of possible wrong votes, such as splitting a ticket or voting for too many candidates in a given race. These checks ensure that tabulators count legitimate votes and reject errors.
“We’re just testing to death to make sure it ends well,” she said.
Traverse City has not yet scheduled a preliminary accuracy check, City Clerk Benjamin Marentette said. But he expects it to take place sometime between June 24 and 28. It is open to anyone who wants to observe it.
“We’re not super formal about it because it’s not traditionally a public event, but everyone is welcome,” he said.
Public accuracy tests are more formal; local governments schedule them and direct people to attend, Scheele said. As of Friday, she did not have the dates for all public accuracy tests in Grand Traverse County, but those dates are due by July 22.
Scheele said the election will not be affected in any way by the disruption to Traverse City and the county’s networks caused by the response to a suspected ransomware attack on part of the network. That’s because all relevant data is stored on cloud-based services, separate from provincial servers, she said.
While her office was busy leading up to receiving the ballots, Scheele said it is now up to local clerks to start issuing those ballots and hiring county staff.
Scheele will then train these district workers starting next week, but mainly in July.
Marentette said city voters who have signed up for absentee voting can expect to receive their ballots around July 1.
Early in-person voting will take place July 27 through Aug. 4, Scheele said. She urged anyone considering this option to contact their local registrar, as some townships host their own councils, while others have combined their branches into one council hall.
Traverse City’s will be in the basement cafeteria of the Governmental Center, Marentette said.
Voters did not use this option much during February’s presidential primaries, although those elections typically see lower turnout, Scheele said.
“We are still trying to get all the information out to voters that they can vote in three different ways,” she said, adding that the third option is voting in person at the polls on August 6.
KALKASKA LAND
County Clerk Deborah Hill said her office is preparing for a busy election year, with training, certifications and ballot preparation.
Hill encouraged residents to register early to vote because “it’s difficult with the new election laws where registration runs all the way to Election Day,” she said. “Normally we organize the ballots based on the (number of) people registered.”
The voter registration deadline was extended through the end of Election Day by a statewide voting proposal passed in November 2018.
As of June 21, the Michigan Voter Information Center documented 17,201 registered voters in Kalkaska County.
In Kalkaska County, some elections will be decided during the August 6 primary simply because only candidates from one political party are running.
Hill said this is not unusual for her county, which she said has been Republican in recent decades.
“Kalkaska is typically Republican when it comes to local officials, so I’m not surprised.”
Election security is not a major issue for her county, where Hill said she knows her residents.
“I think it is less of a concern in the more rural provinces. But I think it’s important that election officials pay attention to the rules … and secure our elections so that there is less public concern,” she said.
LEELANAU COUNTY
The focus for Leelanau County Clerk Michelle Crocker is on early voting and preparing the staff for the election.
She said she expects an early vote will create a lot of work.
“For the people who were trying to vote early for the first time, it was a good experience for them and I thought it went smoothly,” Crocker said. “I expect a bigger turnout this time, because people are often away in the middle of winter.”
In November 2022, nine days of early voting were approved on a statewide ballot proposal.
She said the question she gets most often is whether people can vote on both sides of the ticket. The answer is that they cannot.
Voters can therefore choose the Republican or Democratic candidates, or skip voting for candidates and vote only on proposals.
There are three provincial proposals up for approval: road/highway maintenance, early childhood services and seniors services.
Six townships, including Bingham, Centerville, Cleveland, Kasson, Leland, Solon and Suttons Bay, also have proposals on their ballots.
GANIA COUNTY
No statewide races will be decided in the primaries, Clerk Tammy Bowers said.
“Many candidates are unopposed, but we expect that down the road there will be people who do not join a party,” Bowers said.
Those candidates must file paperwork by July 18 to be placed on the November general election ballot, she said.
Her office is busy with the first ballots arriving Thursday afternoon and election equipment programming expected to arrive early next week.
“It’s coming together,” Bowers said. “These are the last few months where everything has accelerated.
“But that applies to all elections.”
November voters in Benzie County may vote on a new road commission; The discussion on this topic is on the agenda for a meeting of the provincial commission on Tuesday.
