News, Culture and NPR for Central & Northern Michigan
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
91.7FM Alpena and WCML-TV Channel 6 Alpena are off the air. Click here to learn more.

Midland clerk prepares for a busy election day

Phil Romans

Election officials are preparing to process an unprecedented number of absentee ballots this election day.

The city of Midland has issued over 14,000 absentee ballots so far this election, with roughly 11,000 already returned.

City Clerk Erica Armstrong said before the state expanded its absentee voting laws, absentee ballots were counted at the voting precincts. Now, she has hired a separate board to count absentee ballots.

“In August and March, we used a team of 21 people to count the ballots,” she said. “This time around I’ve hired 30 to count the ballots and ten to do pre-processing.”

Armstrong said the city will be able to pre-process some of those ballots because it has a population of more than 25,000.

“The city clerk provides a list of people she has received a ballot from and we provide the actual ballots and a team of republican and democratic election inspectors go through and verify all those ballots are there,” she said.

Armstrong said absentee ballots can begin to be counted at 7AM on election day.

Despite this, she said she expects they will have election results Tuesday night.