By Sylvia Benavidez
Michigan voters had multiple ways to cast ballots before the state’s Aug. 4 election. Early in-person voting began July 25 and ran for nine days, while absentee ballots were available 40 days before the election. But when candidates dropped out after ballots were printed, some voters were left trying to determine whether they could change their votes.
Early voting continued to account for a significant share of turnout in Michigan’s Aug. 4 primary, with 139,608 voters casting ballots in person before Election Day, according to Secretary of State data. The figure was part of a broader shift toward voting before Election Day, with absentee and early in-person ballots together far outpacing traditional Election Day voting in the primary.
Mail-in voting made up the largest share of ballots cast before and during the primary. State data showed 1,380,701 absentee ballots returned for the August election, more than the number submitted in the entire August 2022 primary before polls opened. Michigan voters have been able to vote absentee without giving a reason since 2018, and they may request to be placed on a permanent absentee ballot list. Early in-person voting became law in 2022.
This year, Republican Mike Cox ended his campaign for governor on Friday, July 17, and Democrat Mallory McMorrow suspended her U.S. Senate campaign on July 5. Both names still appeared on ballots, creating confusion for some voters who had already cast absentee or early in-person ballots.
Calhoun County Clerk and Register of Deeds Kimberly Hinkley said early voting went smoothly and drew more voters this year. “We beat our early vote site this year for the August primary. The county early vote site had a total of 461 voters…the municipal clerks’ group had 623 voters come through.”
Hinkley said better signage at the county’s voting site likely helped increase turnout. “A lot of people who came to county said they saw the sign and thought, ‘Yup, let’s get it done .”
But voting early also requires voters to keep track of late changes in a race. “Once the ballots are already printed, then a candidate drops out, we cannot reprint the ballots. Not everybody realizes their candidate has dropped out of the race. We did get inquiries when certain people dropped out of the race this year,” said Hinkley.
Some callers asked whether they could cancel a ballot and receive a new one. “If it gets too close to Election Day, we are getting ready for preprocessing and we can’t do that,: said Hinkley. “If a voter has already returned their ballot and wishes to spoil it, usually two Fridays before Election Day is the deadline for them to do so.”
Because Cox ended his bid for governor in mid-July, voters had little time to spoil absentee ballots they had already returned. Early voting sites, however, can give some voters another option. “The other great feature with early voting is people who have brought their ballots into an early voting site, they can have them tabulated at the early vote site, but they can also spoil them, and we can get them a new ballot,” Hinkley said.
Once an early ballot has been cast, voters cannot ask to spoil it on Election Day because the deadline for written requests has passed and, in some municipalities, preprocessing may have begun the day before the election.
Candidates dropping out after ballots are printed is not new, but early and absentee voting can make timing more important for voters. Hinkley said voters should stay current on their candidates’ status before voting early or after mailing in a ballot. “In every big election, state and federal election, it seems we always have some candidates that drop out afterwards,” she said.
