Early voting in Michigan began over the weekend and will continue through Sunday, August 4.
Over 10,000 ballots were cast Saturday and Sunday at early voting sites across the state, according to Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson.
In addition, Benson added that more than 1.6 million Michiganders have requested a ballot for the primary and almost 700,000 have completed and submitted their ballot a week before Election Day.
The new early voting law comes from a state constitutional amendment that was passed in 2022 and allows for a minimum of nine days for early voting to take place.
Benson stressed during a press conference Monday that elections in the state can be trusted to be safe and secure.
“Our clerks all across the state have been reporting overall that early voting has gone smoothly through the weekend. There have been no major problems,” Benson said.
David Becker is the executive director and the founder of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, a nonprofit that advocates for safer election procedures.
He said that voting early can prevent widespread failures on election day.
“That leads to tremendous security benefits for states that offer widespread options for voting either by mail or early," Becker said. "Concentrating all voting into a single 12 or 14-hour period on a single Tuesday creates the single point of potential failure for a lot of things to happen."
Benson also reminded citizens that those who have requested an absentee ballot can drop it off in person at an early voting site.
Heather Bouck is the city clerk for Mount Pleasant. She said the process for voting early is nearly the same as voting on election day.
“You would come into the facility, produce a photo identification if in your possession, fill out an application to vote, your ballot is printed on demand," Bouck said. "Then you would mark your ballot as you were previously exposed to put it in the tabulator, take your sticker and you're out the door."
Voters can find more information on early and absentee voting at Michigan’s Secretary of State’s website.
