A ballot’s journey: your election questions answered

By Cydney Heed
Staff Writer

With the much anticipated 2020 election almost here, Edward Golembiewski, the director of elections for Washtenaw County, answers some key voting questions.

Note: The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Can people still register to vote?

You can now register in Michigan up until 8 p.m. on Election Day. Or if you need to change your address from one place to another, you can still change your address and become registered to vote in your new place of residence until 8 p.m. on Election Day.

If you’re going to register to vote between now and election day, you have to register in person at the city or township clerk’s office. Every city or township clerk’s office in the state of Michigan is going to be open this weekend on either Saturday or Sunday, and in some cases both, to allow voters to come in and register or to obtain an absentee ballot.

Will in-person polls still be open?

Polling locations will be open on Election Day as they normally are. Every polling location will be open at 7 a.m. and will be available to voters to go and vote in person.

Can you still get an absentee ballot?

You can still obtain an absentee ballot until 4 p.m. on Monday if you go in person.

How many absentee ballots have been received so far?

Clerks across the county have issued 160,102 absent voter ballots so far and have received back 128,423, which is about 80%. And for reference, there’s about 317,000 registered voters here in Washtenaw County.

How many were received during the 2016 election?

During the November 2016 general election, clerks in Washtenaw County issued about 45,000 absentee ballots, and during the November 2018 general election, clerks issued about 47,000.

What happens to an absentee (early) ballot once it is received?

Absentee ballots have to be delivered back to the city or township clerk’s office that issued them. The voter is required to sign that return envelope and their signature on the return envelope is compared to their signature on file as far as their voter registration record is concerned.

What happens after the clerk’s office has received the return envelope and compared the signature and finds that it is valid, what they’ll do is provide it to election inspectors, otherwise known as poll workers. On election day, those election inspectors open the return envelope, and after making sure the clerk has already verified that signature, they take the ballot number from the stub and compare that to the voter’s record. And once they find that the ballot number matches they remove the stub, set aside the ballot for tabulation, and eventually it’s scanned through the ballot tabulator.

What happens if there is a problem with an absentee ballot?

If there is a discrepancy, or if the signature is not present there on the return envelope, they are required to notify the motor within 48 hours and let them know how to correct the discrepancy.

If a stub number doesn’t match they are required to process the ballot as challenged, but the ballot would still end up being tabulated. A challenged ballot is just one that could be identified later on, if there were to be a court order requiring that that ballot be located and the vote removed. But that’s rare.

They also of course have to be returned by 8 p.m. on election night. So if they’re received after 8 p.m. on election night, the ballot can’t be counted.

Is there still enough time to mail in an absentee ballot?

Well at this point given how close the election is, we recommend that if a voter still has a ballot they haven’t returned, that they do so by delivering it in person. Put it in an authorized drop box or hand deliver it to the city or town clerk’s office. If the voter doesn’t know where they’re supposed to take the ballot, they can search for that information at michigan.gov/vote.

What can cause an in-person voter to be turned away?

Well if the voter has not yet registered to vote when they arrive at a polling location, they would need to go and do that first.

What happens if you don’t have a picture ID?

They do have the right to obtain a ballot if they complete an Affidavit of Voter Not in Possession of Photo ID.

How are ballots counted?

The ballot tabulator — actually called an optical scan ballot tabulator — reads the paper ballot that is fed into it and it tallies the votes.

What is the margin of error for the vote tabulator?

Zero.

How do you know?

So what they do is they pre-mark a set of test ballots so that they can run those ballots through the tabulator. And what the ballot tabulator reports needs to correspond to the test deck. Those tests are all open to the public. City and township election commissions are required to hold these public accuracy tests. Anybody can come and actually watch the equipment be tested.

Does the machine tell you if there’s a problem with a ballot?

Let’s say they insert their ballot and the ballot happened to have an overvote, where more than one box on the ballot is filled in a race where you can only vote for one candidate. The tabulator is programmed to notify the voter and let them know that that race has been over voted. The voter can then remove their ballot before the tabulator actually posts it and counts it. Or the voter could choose to say that they want the ballot to be counted as it is and they would direct the tabulator basically to count the ballot. All of the valid votes would be counted but the over-voted race or races would not be.

What happens to the ballots after they are cast?

Once the ballot is fed into the ballot tabulator, the ballots remain in the box until the polls close. At that point the box is unlocked, and the paper ballots are taken by those poll workers–the election inspectors that have been appointed and trained. They place all of the ballots into a secured container. They take a seal and a certificate they record the seal number on the certificate. This work has to be done by a Republican and a Democrat. The only time you ever have to declare your party affiliation officially is when you agree to serve as a poll worker because the law does require every voting precinct to be balanced by the two major parties. And certain steps, and especially the emptying of ballot containers, must be done by affiliates of the two major parties. So those two appointed poll workers place all the ballots into the container. They take that seal and they write the seal number on the certificate. They sign it and then they attach the seal to that container. Once it’s secured the only way that it could be opened is by breaking or obviously tampering with that seal. And the ballots stay in that container for a period of time after election day. And after election day, and after the canvas has been completed and basically the election has been certified, there is an option or an ability for candidates, if they feel a recount should be conducted, to petition for one. At which point a recount could be conducted because those ballots have been kept in their secured, sealed ballot container.

Who makes the rules about how to run an election?

Well, we follow the rule of law. There are a number of election statutes and election laws that we are required to follow. The Secretary of State also promulgates additional rules. We follow the rules [made by] the Secretary of State the laws of the state of Michigan. Every election administrator across the state is required to be trained and to go through an accreditation process that the Secretary of State provides.

Do you think that voter turnout will be greater in this election than previous ones?

This election we certainly expect to see turnout increase over the turnout in November 2016. Maybe approaching 70%.

What was voter turnout in Washtenaw County in 2016?

In November of 2016 there were 288,000 registered voters approximately and 191,473 ballots cast for voter turnout around 66.5%.

Where can voters find more information?

You can visit michigan.gov/vote.

Get stories like this delivered to your inbox by signing up for our newsletter, The Loop.

Comments

comments