GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Election officials have one more step to consider Tuesday after the Michigan Supreme Court allowed the secretary of state’s election manual to be enforced.
The 27-page election manual outlines guidelines for election challengers and poll watchers and, after some legal back and forth, it will be in play Tuesday, as it was for the August primary.
“It’s new…It came out for this last August election and really, we didn’t see it until a couple of days before the August election,” explained Kent County Clerk Lisa Posthumus Lyons.
Lyons ensures that not much, if anything, will change this election day because, while the document may be new to you, poll challengers, in general, are not new.
“We’ve had them from both sides in multiple organizations for several years,” Lyons told FOX 17 Friday.
Kent County has six organizations that poll challengers will represent at precincts throughout the county on election day Tuesday; however, Lyons does not expect any issues.
“We’ve never experienced significant problems in the past, and I don’t think that’ll change now,” she added.
Poll watchers do not play a roll in the election process. They simply observe, and anybody from the public can do so.
“Poll challengers actually play a significant role,” Lyons said.
They can contest voter eligibility and challenge election procedures.
Lyons does expect more challengers to be present for the absentee counting board. Additionally, she expects election results to take longer.
“We’re not going to sacrifice security and accuracy for speed and for speed and expediency,” she explained. “Be patient. When it comes to getting results, it takes time to count your votes, and I expect us to have our results fully reported, it’ll probably take around 24 hours.”
Voting jurisdictions in Michigan that meet a certain population threshold can preprocess absentee ballots, which means getting them ready to count.
Kent County has two, so most ballots will not be processed or tabulated until the polls open at 7 a.m. Tuesday.
