WEST OLIVE, Mich. — Tuesday’s primary marked the first election since Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed a series of bills that implemented Proposal 2, a constitutional amendment passed last November that aimed to expand voting rights.
Parts of the law went into effect for the primary, most notably prepaid postage for absentee ballots and more drop boxes.
Under the law, clerks must provide postage on all absentee ballot applications and envelops. It also requires municipalities install one drop box for every 15,000 registered voters.
Justin Roebuck, the Ottawa County clerk, says none of their communities needs to put in more drop boxes and coordination with the Michigan Secretary of State’s Office helped ensure they could meet the prepaid postage rules
“I would say that there's been a lot of preparation taking place already,” said Roebuck. “I think we were able to roll that out pretty smoothly.”
According to Roebuck, the true test of whether clerks can manage the new law will be during Michigan’s presidential primary next year when the rest of it goes into effect.
He explains some of the changes, like nine days of early voting, require significant financial and human capital and implementation of it falls on local cities and townships.
In order to mitigate some of those costs in Ottawa County, Roebuck says they plan to partner with some cities to create centralized vote centers. Details are still being worked out. He hopes the new law encourages people to get involved in the election process.
“We’re looking at doing something at half of the projected cost versus having each municipal and each municipal government in Ottawa County do it alone,” said Roebuck. “I think there's a lot of ways that we can work together and think together to do things efficiently.”
He added, It's a way to make a little bit of extra money on the side and it really is a way to help your community on the front lines of what we're doing and election administration. We could not do it without our election workers.”
Other changes under Proposal 2 include:
- Allow voters to track the statuses of their ballots via a specialized website.
- Require a minimum of nine days of early voting to take place before elections and authorize early counting for absentee ballots.
- Establishes requirements for voters to fix ballot errors and necessitates prepaid postage for absentee envelopes.
- Allows voters to present military IDs, student IDs, passports or tribal photo IDs to verify their identities at the polls in addition to the options already in place.
- Criminalizes disclosure of election results before Election Day, punishable by up to five years in prison.
- Expand the availability of ballot drop boxes.
- Allow voters to submit one application to request absentee ballots for all elections in the future.
- Increase precinct size, saving local governments money.
