By Lily Guiney
Staff Writer
Posted: August 2, 2024 12:24 PM

DETROIT – Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson told reporters at a Monday press conference that over 10,600 voters cast ballots during the first two days of the early voting window Saturday and Sunday, and 700,000 of the over 1.6 million Michiganders that requested mail-in ballots for the August 6 primary have already submitted their votes.

Early voting began on Saturday and will continue until Sunday, August 4. Benson said that while it's too early to compare early voter turnout for the August primary to that of the February presidential primary, a significant number of Michiganders are taking advantage of the new options available for casting a ballot outside of election day.

Benson said the changes made through Proposal 2022-2 will help election officials tabulate ballots and publicize results in a timelier manner than in the 2020 or 2022 election cycles. Early voting and preprocessing of absentee ballots were key changes approved by voters.

"There are 1.6 million absentee ballots already requested for this election cycle, and nearly half of them have already been returned. That means under these new procedures, 165 jurisdictions are able to begin preprocessing and tabulating those ballots now, the week before election day," Benson said. "It's a significant change that we know will contribute to helping us ensure our counting of valid votes continues to be secure, efficient and that we can give results to all of you in the media, as well as citizens, throughout our state and country as quickly as possible while maintaining that security."

Benson and David Becker, director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, stressed the differences between elections this year and the ones that preceded them.

"Let's think back to Michigan's last non-COVID presidential election, which was eight years ago in 2016," Becker said. "Michigan went from offering relatively few options with regard to early or mail voting to now becoming a leader, joining so many other states in offering many convenient options for eligible voters to vote in this state. That is that is a really good thing."

Benson acknowledged that advances in election accessibility and technology don't come without concerns over security but said she's confident in election workers' ability to follow procedures, even with the pressure of possible high turnout or technological issues.

"We'll work throughout the cycle ahead to make sure that we continue to communicate to every citizen the rightly placed right they should have in our elections and our processes and the faith they should have in their voice, in their vote," Benson said. "Today we want to make sure in the primary election that every voice is heard, and every eligible voter casts their ballot in this primary and again in November."

After a state server issue affecting electronic poll books briefly interrupted early voting on Saturday, Benson said she discussed troubleshooting with the Department of Technology, Management and Budget to ensure no more technological issues occur during the voting process. If something does go awry, she said, election workers know what to do.

"As it unfolded, (I was) grateful to see how clerks who had been trained to know how to respond in the instance of any technology failing quickly responded with the backup plans we had in place and it showed that even though we can't perhaps eliminate any potential variable in occurring, we can minimize its impact, and that's what we were able to do on Saturday," Benson said.

Benson said in both the August primary and the November general election, Michiganders can expect to see election results sooner than they did in the 2020 presidential cycle. Sterling Heights City Clerk Melanie Riska said the early voting window makes it much easier for her election workers to spread out the mammoth task of processing and tabulation.

"We processed about 42,000 absentee voter ballots at the presidential election in 2020. That took our team about 27 hours, and it took about 90 people," Riska said. "That's a huge strain on the process overall. And so, with early voting, we hope to have some of those voters vote early. And then with preprocessing or early tabulation, we hope to alleviate some of that work and that strain that we have on election day. That will give us an opportunity to focus on the ballots that are being returned the day before or on election day to process those on election day."

While results could come earlier on election night, Benson encouraged voters, media and candidates themselves to refrain from being hasty in responding to results that aren't yet official.

"We want to make sure candidates know to not falsely, prematurely declare victory before every vote is counted, because that helps us ensure that as the votes are tabulated, the process remains secure," she said. "And citizens can have faith and trust the results as they become available as we get closer not just to election day on Tuesday in our primary, but election day in November."

Once the primary election concludes, Benson said the data surrounding early voting will be helpful in voter education and turnout efforts ahead of the November election.

"What I hope to be able to do after the primary election is actually release the top ten communities for early voting in our state and encourage citizens who want their community to be in the top ten to participate in the fall," Benson said. "We also see data that the more people know that they can vote early and that it's easy and secure and they know where to go, the more likely they are to take advantage of it, and so a lot of what we're doing is that proactive education, and we'll get a sense after this primary of where we need to perhaps lean in and do a little more leaning into November."