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Early voting kicks off in Detroit while other communities wait
Detroit is among the first communities in Michigan to take advantage of early voting, starting about a week before municipalities are required to offer the option.
DETROIT (FOX 2) - The Detroit City Clerk has a goal for the presidential election: have the entire city's results reported by the end of the night.
Thanks to new laws that allow absentee ballots to be pre-processed before election day, as well as allow early voting, Janice Winfrey has set the ambitious target of Michigan's largest city completing its tabulating by the end of Nov. 5.
"It allows us to present results in a timely fashion, so by the 11 o'clock news, it's our goal in Detroit to have 100% of results reporting," she told FOX 2 on Monday.
It would be a seismic shift from the days of delayed results in 2020, the last presidential election that placed Wayne County at the center of the political world as voters waited to learn who would be the country's next leader.
Since then, Michigan has installed new avenues for voting while also alleviating the burden on poll workers on election day. Instead of processing and tabulating the hundreds of thousands of absentee ballots mailed to the clerk after polls close, much of that work will take place nine days before election day.
Cutting down the time it takes to report results also reduces the space for one of Winfrey's concerns in the lead-up to election day: "narratives you can't control," she said, referring to the false allegations of fraudulent tabulating in the absent voter counting board in 2020.
"The Big Lie, the election deniers - they attacked the absentee voting process," she said. "During those nine days, challengers are allowed to come in and observe the process."
She also has concerns about other factors someone can't control, like the weather causing an outage or poor road conditions preventing voters from getting to the polls.
"But my biggest concern is always turnout," she said. "I always pray for hardy turnout."
Winfrey says if the city reaches a turnout of 55% of its citizens, she will "sleep well on election night."
The clerk's office is doing that by offering early voting at 14 different sites around Detroit. To motivate the low-propensity voters, whom she identified as 18 to 40-year-olds, the city is partnering with the Detroit Pistons and Live Nation to put on neighborhood parties that marry voting with entertainment.
MORE: Early voting in Detroit: When and where to cast a ballot before election day
At the kickoff of the early voting on Oct. 19, 6,700 people attended the Saturday block party while approximately 2,000 citizens cast a ballot around Detroit.
Two days later, early voting is still happening with residents like James Stephen taking advantage of the process at the clerk's office.
"It’s my civic duty to vote. I have just a couple of them. So I said today I was going to make it my business to come down here and vote right where the main office is at," he said.
For others like Elvera Reece, voting isn't just a means of participating in the electoral process.
"This election is the most important of probably any of our lifetimes. So it means everything," she said. "Please please got out and vote. It means everything."
With election day just over two weeks out, Wayne County is leading the way with absentee ballot returns, clocking 168,576 by the end of Monday. Another 2,506 ballots have been cast during early voting, according to the Michigan Voting Dashboard. That represents 14.% of the entire county.
Voting in Michigan: Monday is the last day to register to vote online, by mail
If you aren't yet registered to vote in Michigan, you have until the end of Monday, Oct. 21 to register online or get your registration application in the mail. After the deadline, you will have to visit your clerk's office to register.
In Detroit, there have been 56,788 absentee ballots returned; about 14.3% of the city's registered voters.
With the presidential election getting closer, many clerks are encouraging any voters who haven't returned their absentee ballot to do so in-person, rather than by mail. To avoid any potential delays, both local clerks and the Michigan Secretary of State recommends returning ballots to the local clerk's office or an early voting site.
October 21st is also the deadline for voters wishing to cast a ballot during the 2024 election to register to vote by mail or online. Afterward, anyone who still needs to register must do so in-person.