OPINION

The CP Edit: Let the Counting Begin

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In November 2018, more than two-thirds of state voters supported sweeping changes to Michigan’s absentee voting laws, bringing us in line with 27 other states that allow no-reason absentee voting. Prior to the adoption of Proposal 3, popularly known as “Promote the Vote,” voters could only cast absentee ballots if they were over age 60, planning to be out of town on Election Day, serving as a poll worker, unable to vote without assistance at the polls, unable to vote in person due to religious reasons, or in jail awaiting arraignment or trial.

Not surprisingly, the advent of no-reason absentee voting has had a profound impact on voting patterns in cities across the state, including Lansing. A whopping 76 percent of capital city voters chose to cast absentee ballots in last year’s August primary election and 66 percent in the November general election.

To the credit of Chris Swope, Lansing’s amiable and highly effective city clerk, the use of absentee ballots by city voters began to rise long before Proposal 3. A decade ago, absentee votes represented about 28 percent of all ballots cast in the city. By 2015 that number had surged to nearly 45 percent, thanks to Swope’s persistent and successful efforts to add eligible voters to the permanent AV list, his continuous outreach efforts to make city residents aware of their voting options, and more recently, establishing multiple offices with extended hours to accommodate walk-in absentee voting up to 40 days in advance of the election.

Although few clerks around the state have been as aggressive and successful as Swope, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson still expects the statewide average for absentee voting to reach or exceed 50 percent in the upcoming 2020 presidential election, nearly double the rate in the three previous statewide elections.

The overwhelming success of no-reason absentee voting has had predictable side effects. Because local clerks are not permitted to open or count absentee ballots until the polls close at 8pm on Election Day, the task of promptly tallying the final vote and reporting the results has become vastly more challenging. According to Clerk Swope, the change is dramatically shifting the work of his office away from polling locations. In the November 2019 election, Swope hired 227 polling workers to help with just 26 percent of the vote, while the 28 people in his office counted the lion’s share of the votes.

This sea change in voting patterns, and the likelihood that even more voters will choose to cast absentee ballots in future elections, creates a major challenge for Swope and his peers. If you can’t even open the deluge of absentee ballots before the polls close, how can they all be tallied before the sun comes up the following day? In all likelihood, they cannot and perhaps should not. Asking the clerk’s staff to pull an all-nighter to count the absentee ballots is a tall order, and one that makes mistakes in the wee hours of the morning all the more likely.

That’s why lawmakers should approve changes to state election statutes to allow clerks to open and prepare absentee ballots for counting well before the polls open on Election Day. Secretary Benson called for such changes more than a year ago, but her warning that clerks are not equipped to deal with the onslaught of absentee ballots apparently fell on deaf ears in the Michigan Legislature. At this writing, no bills have yet been introduced to help ease the counting crunch by allowing the early processing of absentee ballots.

Opponents of such changes, including former Secretary of State Ruth Johnson, allege that opening absentee ballots before Election Day will lead to all sorts of calamities, such as voter fraud or election results being disclosed prior to the close of polling locations, possibly influencing voters who haven’t cast their ballots yet.

Yet dozens of other states have adopted rules that allow early processing of absentee ballots. In Maine, for example, municipalities can choose to process absentee ballots up to three days before an election, but are not permitted to count them until after polls have closed. Delaware allows local elections officials to begin opening absentee ballots the Friday before a Tuesday election but requires them to do so in a public meeting so challengers can observe the process.

With less than ten months to go before voters head to the polls for the presidential election, time is growing short to make the necessary changes here in Michigan — and for clerks to implement them — that would allow opening, preparing and perhaps even counting absentee ballots before Election Day.

A major obstacle to making it happen is Ruth Johnson herself, now a state senator who chairs the Senate Elections Committee. Despite her opposition, we urge the Capital region’s legislative delegation to work with Clerk Swope and others to get the ball rolling by drafting and introducing legislation based on best practices in other states, then working to persuade Senator Johnson and other reticent Republicans to get on board.

Send letters to the editor on this editorial or any other topic to letters@lansingcitypulse.com. Please limit them to 250 words.

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