Election day for the Michigan Democrat and Republican primaries is fast approaching on Tuesday. Some people have already cast their votes, as Michigan voters can vote by absentee ballot or at early voting sites from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on July 27 through Aug. 4. In Leelanau County, there is only one early voting site: the government center at 8527 E. Government Center Drive in Suttons Bay.
On election day itself, the early voting site at the government center will be closed. Voters will need to go to the polling locations in their township/precinct. To find their polling location, readers can visit mvic.sos.state.mi.us/Voter/ Index.
County Clerk Michelle Crocker has been re-certifying election workers in the leadup to the primary elections. Crocker said that she’s held six training sessions at the county government center in July, spanning from four-and-ahalf to five-and-a-half hours, where workers from Leelanau’s 11 townships learned “opening the polls, closing the polls, and everything in between.”
“They all seem to be pretty excited. We didn’t really have any openings. Everyone who did it in February – except maybe two or three people – wanted to do it again,” Crocker said about the election workers. “I even had people at training who asked me if they could get on the list for early voting in the future.”
The early voting site at the government center opened for the first time since February last Saturday. Crocker said that the early voting site will be staffed by four people – two Democrats and two Republicans – plus a site supervisor, every day from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. for nine days through Aug. 4.
People must be registered to vote before visiting the county’s early voting site. However, election day registrants may register to vote with their local township clerk on election with proof of residency, according to a notice of election from the clerk’s office.
Since February, a constitutional amendment went into effect that allows voters to take their marked absentee ballots to their polling places and personally place them into a tabulator to be counted. Crocker confirmed that voters have the option to do this at the government center early voting site between July 27 and Aug. 4 and at polling locations throughout the county on election day.
According to Michigan Compiled Laws (MCL) - Section 168.764a, voters can bring their absentee ballots in their secrecy sleeves to the early voting site or polling precinct and indicate to the election inspectors that they wish to put their absent voter ballot into the tabulator personally.
Before they can tabulate their ballot, however, voters will be required to provide identification for election purposes or sign an affidavit that they did not have identification for election purposes and complete the ballot application.
Voting by absentee ballot has historically been a popular option in Leelanau County. In the February presidential primary, 56% of the total votes were cast via absentee voter ballots in the precincts which count absentee votes separately. Vote.org says that for most Michigan voters, absentee ballots must be received by their township clerk by 8 p.m. on election day.
According to the Michigan Voter Information Center, there were 21,900 registered voters in Leelanau County at the time of writing. This number is updated daily and can be found at mvic. sos.state.mi.us/VoterCount/ Index.
