250K Michiganders voted early over the weekend, Benson hails it as a ‘huge success’

Attendees wait for Vice President Kamala Harris to speak in Detroit on the first day of early in-person voting on Oct. 19, 2024. (Photo: Anna Liz Nichols)

Michigan’s first weekend of statewide early voting for a general election saw higher-than-expected turnout, according to Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson.

“In the first two days of statewide early voting, more than 250,000 citizens made their voices heard, a number that far exceeded the expectations of state and local election officials,” said Benson at a press conference Monday morning in Detroit. “And while we were surprised by the large turnout, it was a very pleasant surprise. Clerks were well prepared. The processes and systems that they had in place ran smoothly, and overall, Michigan’s first day of voting in a general election was a huge success.”

Early voting sites will be open all this week, every day through Sunday. Anyone with questions can go to michigan.gov/earlyvoting for information, including the location of an early voting site and hours of operation in specific communities.

Early voting, a constitutional ballot measure approved by voters in 2022 , went into effect earlier this year , with Benson saying that in the February presidential primary, the total turnout for all nine days of early voting was 79,000, and 73,000 for the August primary.

“Before this weekend, the record for the highest early voting turnout in a single day was just over 11,000 voters, and on Saturday, we had more than a 145,000 turn out statewide,” she said.

Combined with the number of absentee ballots that have already been received, either through the mail or being turned in at official drop boxes, Benson said more than 1.5 million Michigan voters have already cast their ballots out of the 7.2 million active registered voters in the state.

So far, Washtenaw County leads the state in early voting, with 29.7% of its registered voters already participating, with Oakland County a close second at 27.5%

In her remarks, Benson also laid out demographic trends they’ve seen so far.

“While almost two-thirds of Michigan citizens who voted by mail are older than 60, a full 61% of those who early voted so far are under 60, and a large group of those are young voters. 13.5% of early voters are under 30. We continue to see a gap between men and women also participating this early in the election. Of all the votes cast to date in Michigan’s elections, 55% are from women and 44% are from men,” said Benson.

Monday was also the first day that many jurisdictions could begin to preprocess absentee ballots — which involves opening the outer return envelopes, verifying absentee ballot numbers and then placing the secrecy sleeve-covered ballots into a secure container for counting on election day.

Benson noted that j urisdictions with more than 5,000 residents can have up to eight days of preprocessing, while every jurisdiction in Michigan has the option for an extra day.

“And it’s important to remember that although the ballots will be run through the tabulator, results will not be generated or visible until after the polls close at 8 p.m. on election night,” she said.

When asked about Warren City Clerk Sonja Buffa’s refusal to preprocess absentee ballots , Benson said she had been in touch with Buffa and offered whatever support that she needs to ensure the efficient and secure tabulation of votes in Warren.

“I won’t pass comment on the decision that she made, which is within her purview to make, but that said, we’ll be there to help [Macomb County Clerk Anthony] Forlini, as well as Clerk Buffa to make sure that they have all the resources they need to preprocess and tabulate all ballots as quickly as possible,” said Benson. “All that said, I think when it comes to election night, if there is one community that is lagging behind others, and it’s Warren, we’ll be open about that so that we can make sure everyone knows exactly what’s happening as we go through the process.”

Buffa claims it would “actually take more time to pre-process absentee votes for eight days given the extra people needed, the time it takes, the storage necessitated, and the compiling afterwards, than one full day of counting.”

That decision has worried Forlini, a Republican, as well as several other Warren officials that it will slow down the results not just for Warren, but for Macomb County, as well.

Warren is Macomb County’s most populous municipality with more than 136,000 residents. It has been a Democratic stronghold in a county that former President Donald Trump won both in 2016 and 2020.

However, Benson said overall, she was optimistic that this year would at least be like 2020 when unofficial results were known within 24 hours

“We know in 2020, we had two-thirds of our citizens voting from home and we know clerks couldn’t begin processing those ballots until Election Day, and we also know it was our highest turnout ever in state history,” said Benson. “With all of those factors, and a global pandemic, we had our results within 24 hours of the polls closing. So based on that, I know we’ll at least have it by then this time. We have a number of other factors in our favor, most significantly, the fact that preprocessing starts today, not on Tuesday, Nov. 5.”

Benson was also asked about election security concerns, based on what happened in 2020 when a crowd of mostly-white Trump supporters showed up at the then-TCF Center (now Huntington Place), pounded on windows and chanted “Stop the Count” at election workers while votes in Detroit, a majority-Black city, were being counted.

“We hope for the best, but plan for every contingency. In fact, after our conversation here today, I’m going to be heading to Huntington Place to do a walk through of the plans in Detroit for the absentee counting board,” said Benson. “So, yes, we are working with MSP (Michigan State Police) and the [Michigan] Attorney General’s office, as well as the Detroit Police Department and many others to be prepared for anything and to protect our election workers. I’m glad we have more laws than we had in the past to make it clear it’s a crime if you threaten an election worker in their line of work. We also want to continue encouraging transparency. So, we invite observers from both parties to watch and observe within the confines of the law. So we’ll be monitoring all those pieces.”

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