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CANTON TOWNSHIP, Mich. (FOX 2) - Absentee ballots will be issued later in September. Early in-person voting kicks off a week and a half afterward. A month later will be election day, which will be the final opportunity for voters to cast a ballot.
The way Canton Township Clerk Michael Siegrist sees it, the 2024 presidential election is "really the Baskin-Robbins 31 flavors of voting."
"For voters, it's going to be fantastic. You can vote in any way relevant to you and your life and family," he said.
Michigan's expanded avenues for voting has made it easier than ever to cast a ballot in an election.
With cities and townships required to offer early voting for at least nine days, mail-in votes being made available more than a month before election day, and tabulating those ballots being allowed more than a week in advance, clerks like Siegrist are confident the state will be able to see election day through without the delays that accompanied the 2020 presidential election.
While there is no pandemic to shift how people will cast their ballot, this presidential election is expected to be another tense one with historic turnout.
After two separate primary elections in February and August this year featured non-competitive races and little voter engagement, November is expected to be different.
"The task before us is a very large on," said Siegrist. "It's probably going to be the highest turnout potentially in history."
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Tuesday is National Voter Registration Day and with less than 50 days until the presidential election, there is a large push to increase participation among voters in November and beyond.
Early voting in a presidential election
This is the first time Michigan will offer early voting for a presidential election.
Townships and cities can offer early voting as early as Oct. 7 and are required to provide at least nine days of early voting, starting on Oct. 26.
There was low turnout during the August primary election at the polls during the early voting period. While it was a new process, there were few races that spurred people to the polls.
"Both February and August were not hyper-competitive. There was low turnout overall and low interest," said Siegrist. "We will not have that problem in November."
When someone votes early, they will insert their ballot into the tabulator themselves. Siegrist says this can help assuage some fears of voters too nervous about letting a volunteer or clerk tabulate the ballot.
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While the machine will collect ballots before election day, the results will remain concealed until after election day.
The only thing clerks will do to the tabulator is ensure that the number of votes inserted in the machine matches the number of people who showed up to vote. The results won't be printed until about 8:05 p.m., Siegrist said.
No mail-in voting delays
There was no early voting function in Michigan during the 2020 election. Beyond recently-legalized no-reason absentee voting in 2018, the state's election infrastructure was put under immense pressure four years ago.
Between serving an unprecedented number of mail-in ballots that could only be processed starting on election day, and allowing in-person voting amid the Covid pandemic, clerks spent the weeks before and after Nov. 3, 2020 preparing for ballots, counting them, and readying them to be certified.
But 2024 will be different, Siegrist said.
"In Canton, we don't have to wait until 7 a.m. on Nov. 5 to process the tens of thousands of ballots we'll receive," he said. "We'll begin processing them eight days prior to the election. We will do that and have 90% processed before polls open."
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That function relieves the burden on the clerk's office, which enables workers to spend more time keeping the lines on election day moving, ensuring things run smoothly until polls close.
As of Monday, Canton Township had received 20,000 absentee ballot requests.
Fears of postal service disruptions
While clerks don't expect delays in counting absentee ballots, there are fears the U.S. Postal Service could buckle under the pressure of getting ballots to clerk's office by election day.
According to the Associated Press, state and local election officials warned that problems with the nation's mail delivery system could keep some ballots from being counted.
Some ballots that voters filled out and mailed to the clerk's office never made it by the August Primary, a letter sent to the U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy said. It was written by the National Association of Secretaries of State and the National Association of State Election Directors.
It warned local election officials "in nearly every state" are receiving timely postmarked ballots after Election Day and outside the three to five business days USPS claims as the standard for first-class mail, the AP reported.
How to request an absentee ballot for the November election in Michigan
Michigan’s early voting options will soon open up as the state nears another election with major consequences for the outcome of the presidency and beyond.
The Michigan Secretary of State is hoping to avoid those delays by encouraging anyone who plans to vote via absentee and wants to request it by mail to do so two weeks in advance. If it's within two weeks before the election, voters should request an absentee ballot in-person and return it in-person.
Siegrist also said pre-paid postage stamps will be included with absentee ballots. It will be run through a program called Business Reply Mail. It allows the sender to include a convenient way for the recipient to return mail, by pre-paying for the stampage.
A less-partisan election?
Despite multiple apparent assassination attempts against one nominee and a familiar mood of urgency among pundits and political campaigns, Siegrist believes the 2024 election is less partisan and temperatures have cooled slightly.
In contrast to the tone of politics in 2020, which was intermixed with the pandemic and racial unrest, this cycle isn't unraveling in the same way, according to the clerk.
"It's a pretty bizarre thing to say, but there are less individuals who are at least falling for voter fraud lines and getting visibly angry and upset about that," he said.
"I feel like your basic taxpayer may be a little fatigued and exhausted from the partisanship and won't keep that up," he said.