How secure are Michigan election ballots? Here's how the process works

LANSING — Four years ago, President Donald Trump and a group of GOP activists cast doubt on the accuracy of Michigan's election system, claims that have been disproven.

But those fraud allegations aimed at President Joe Biden, who won Michigan by 3 percentage points, and the local election workers and clerks who run the state's election system lingered in the years since. And they've ramped up as Trump makes a bid to return to the White House.

Michigan has among the most decentralized election systems in the country. The setup, experts have said, adds to the security because there are additional separation of duties and more checks and balances.

Ballots are printed, proofread, mailed, sorted, moved to polling places and, at nearly every step along the way, tracked and secured.

However, when in the same discussion as elections nationwide, the decentralized system can be harder to follow as it happens across three levels of government: local, county and state.

As a result, local election clerks and polls workers have faced threats, intimidation and harassment. Many clerks have reported that those threats have increased in the past four years and are bracing for what might happened later this year.

With the state and the U.S. preparing for the final stretch of another high-pressure election, here's a look at how Michigan ballots are handled, from their creation to the counting of votes. The State Journal spoke with local clerks and used Michigan law and public election materials to explain the process.

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The early days of ballots

County clerks like Barb Byrum in Ingham County are largely responsible for ordering ballots for local municipalities, based on the number of ballots city, township or village clerks anticipate needing for an upcoming election.

Byrum, a long-serving and outspoken Democrat, said after the 2020 election her worries are not about whether the state can run a fair and accurate election, but rather about the lack of accountability for those who spread disinformation, and what that means for disinformation around this November's election.

"I am not worried about the ability of clerks to run safe and secure elections," she said.

Before the election-ready ballots are delivered to local clerks, sample ballots are prepared and sent for proofreading by clerks and candidates, who check that names are spelled correctly and appear in the correct race. Then they are sent to printers.

While the printers are working on the millions of Michigan ballots, clerks and their staffs review and work on the audio guides used by voters who have difficulty seeing or reading. The audio is reviewed to ensure names are pronounced correctly.

Ballots and additional materials are then sent to local clerks so they can start testing the tabulator machines.

Testing, testing

By law, clerks must conduct two tests.

The first tests every electronic tabulating machine that could be used in an election. This is called the logic and accuracy test.

The second is a test open to the public and includes a smaller sampling of machines. For the August primary, for example, the City of Lansing on July 22 tested a machine that will be used in a precinct and another that will be used in an early voting center.

Local clerks test the tabulator machines — which aren't connected to the internet and only tally votes — by running both correctly and incorrectly voted ballots.

In primaries, Michigan voters can't split their ticket, which means they can't vote Republican in one race and Democrat in another. So for the August primaries, clerks will test tabulators with split ballots, over votes, under votes, no votes and for marks on a ballot that are not inside a bubble next to a candidate's name. Machines pass the tests if they flag those ballots instead of accepting them.

Tabulators are also tested to ensure they'll count the correct votes for each candidate in each race. To do so, clerks run pre-filled ballots with different vote totals for candidates through the machines. They then check the results tapes, which look like long receipts, against the pre-determined results that are proscribed by the state.

The early vote center tabulators can be programmed to take ballots from multiple precincts in the municipality, while precinct-specific machines will flag a ballot from a neighboring precinct. Both types of machines are tested for this scenario.

When testing is done, the materials are packed in specific containers and closed with security seals that include a specific serial number. That number is recorded in multiple places so officials can tell whether a box or bag containing test ballots and election materials has been opened and possibly tampered with.

If, for some reason, a ballot container has to be opened after it was sealed, election workers will document the reason, reseal the container and, once again, document the new security seal numbers.

All of these steps — the countless security seals and ballot checks — can make understanding the system in a decentralized state like Michigan difficult. But Marie Wicks, the nonpartisan clerk in East Lansing, called all of these steps "mechanisms of integrity.”

Once voters understand all the election logistics, she said concerns often dissipate, but she acknowledged that some people will claim fraud regardless.

"It's not even about a (political) party anymore," Wicks said. "It's just massive gaslighting going on with election integrity."

What happens with absentee and mailed ballots

Among the first ballots sent to voters are to military members and U.S. citizens living overseas. These ballots can be mailed or emailed overseas, but must be mailed back to clerks. They're among the first to receive ballots and among the last batch of votes to be added to the totals on election night.

The overseas ballots can't be run through tabulators. Local election workers duplicate the votes on a fresh ballot that can be sent through the machine. The review and ballot replication is overseen by a Republican and a Democrat representative. Steps and any irregularities are, once again, documented so they can later be reconciled or explained should a question arise at canvassing or a recount.

The next batch of ballots will be sent to absentee voters. With the expanded access to mail voting and increased popularity, some municipal clerks order pre-folded ballots to make preparation easier.

Likewise, some clerks will have envelopes that already include the voter's mailing address and others will have printed address labels, both of which come directly from state voter registration data. But before the ballot is put into that envelope, workers check to ensure the voter received the correct ballot — which varies from precinct to precinct — based on their address.

That ballot is put into a secrecy sleeve and combined with a return envelope, which must be returned with the voter's signature, and placed into another envelope for mailing.

Workers mark in the voter's file that they've requested and been sent an absentee ballot. Voters who receive one can still decide to vote on Election Day or during early voting, as long as they have not returned their absentee ballot. That's part of the Election Day checks that poll workers make before giving a prospective voter a ballot.

Ballots mailed back will again be documented and then each will be checked to ensure the voter's signature matches the signature on file. When collecting ballots from secure drop boxes, workers will document who emptied the ballot box, the day and time, and then bring ballots back to the clerk's office in specific, certified ballot bags.

Back at the clerk's office, the bags are checked by different workers to make sure correct ballots were returned. Then they can be taken out of their envelopes and prepared for counting before they're boxed up in containers with the security seals to be delivered to the absentee count centers.

Chris Swope and Marie Wicks, the clerks for Lansing and East Lansing, said they each store ballots and election materials in city buildings.

Wicks said her storage area is in East Lansing City Hall, which also houses the Police Department and District Court. The materials are kept in a locked room that even cleaning crews aren't able to access.

Workers at the counting location, which can differ depending on the size of municipality, will check the seal numbers, open the container and begin preparing ballots for tabulation. Some municipalities have high-speed tabulators to count ballots faster.

Absentee ballots, ballots in drop boxes and ballots from military or overseas citizens can be tallied before polls close, but the vote totals for each candidate are not reported — or even known to the municipal clerk — until all vote totals are sent to the county clerk after polls close on Election Day. While the machines tally the votes, the results can't be accessed until polls close. Additional military or overseas ballots delivered to clerks after the polls close can still be counted as long as they were postmarked by Election Day.

Voters can return their ballots to drop boxes until the polls close on Election Day, meaning poll workers will be waiting at the boxes, which are under video surveillance, to collect any ballots that hadn't already been collected.

Voting in person

Voters have two options for casting their ballot in person.

They can go to early voting, which for the Aug. 6 election began July 27. Or they can show up to their precinct polling place on Election Day.

Before they receive a ballot, election workers confirm a voter is at the right polling place and that they haven't already voted by mail. They're then given a ballot (early vote centers will have ballots from all precincts) and can cast their votes.

When a ballot is filled out, voters take it in a secrecy sleeve to poll workers who check the ballot number against the one assigned to the voter. If it matches, the workers rip off a stub that has the number on it. The voter then runs the ballot into the tabulator. Once the stub is removed from the ballot it can't be traced back to that specific voter, ensuring the secrecy of the ballot.

If there are no errors in how the ballot was filled out — over voting, under voting, no votes cast, etc. — the tabulator accepts the ballot and it remains locked inside.

If, however, there's an error on the ballot, the machine will give the voter a chance to spoil that ballot, which means it won't be counted. The voter can then get a new ballot on which to cast their votes. However, voters have a right to cast ballots that won't be counted, so it's possible a voter might still wish to cast a ballot with too many or too few votes.

During early voting, tabulators are often emptied after each day and the ballots are secured in containers with numbered security seals, and taken to storage.

Once the tabulator accepts a voter's ballot, the voter will never see or touch it again. But that ballot still has a ways to go before reaching its final destination.

Once the counting is over

The work of running an election doesn't end when the polls close.

Anyone in line at a ballot drop box or at a polling site at 8 p.m. on Election Day can vote. Once voting is finished, the tabulator machines print off results in triplicate. One copy is taken by hand to the county clerk, who also receives the memory cards from the machines. One copy is taken by hand to the chief judge of the local probate court.

The municipal clerk keeps the third copy as well as the ballots, which are sealed in a certified ballot container, secured and taken back to a clerk's office for the next step.

Receiving teams, which include Republican and Democrat representatives, check that containers are properly sealed in case of a possible recount. Containers can be opened, if needed, but workers will document the reason why and then reseal them with new security seals. And the numbers once again are documented.

Local clerks keep all the ballots and store them, along with all documentation and other election materials, in a secure location. A step that, once again, includes numbered security seals and documentation.

For federals elections, ballots must be kept for 22 months.

When local clerks lock up their ballots on Aug. 6 — or very likely the early hours of Aug. 7 — they won't get much of a rest.

Early voting for the November election will start in just 61 days.

Contact reporter Matt Mencarini at 517-377-1026 or mjmencarini@lsj.com .

This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: How secure are Michigan election ballots? Here's how the process works