Early in-person voting underway across Michigan

Election Day may be more than a week away, but Ann Arbor residents and University of Michigan students have already started casting their ballots for the 2024 general election.

Proposal 2, an amendment to the Michigan Constitution approved by voters in 2022 mandates a minimum of nine days of early voting before statewide and federal elections. Early voting centers must be open for at least eight hours a day until Sunday, Nov. 3. This year, early voting began Saturday, Oct. 26.

Ann Arbor residents can cast their ballots early at six locations, including the University of Michigan Museum of Art, the Duderstadt Center, Ann Arbor city hall and three local libraries. The Ann Arbor City Clerk has satellite offices at the UMMA and the Duderstadt Center, where students and community members can register to vote, check their registration status and mail or cast their ballots. The voting centers will be open Nov. 4 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. for last-minute registration and on Election Day from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. for in-person voting.

Nursing junior Chazia Siskowski, a UMICH Votes Fellow who provides resources and assistance to voters, told The Michigan Daily early voting turnout at the UMMA exceeded her expectations.

“For the first day of early voting, it has honestly blown me away,” Siskowski said. “We had a line filling the entire lobby of the UMMA.”

As of Sunday afternoon, Michigan’s voting dashboard stated that nearly 23% of registered voters in the state have cast more than 150,000 ballots early or absentee. Jacqueline Beaudry, Ann Arbor city clerk, reported that Ann Arbor had the highest statewide early voting turnout on the first day at 2,011 voters.

LSA senior Annie Rollins said in an interview with The Daily that she initially planned to vote absentee, but later chose to vote early in-person because of the excitement of casting her ballot at a polling place. Voters who request absentee ballots but decide to vote in-person instead must sign an affidavit stating that they only voted once. 

“I decided to vote early in-person because I received my absentee ballot in the mail a while ago, but it’s kind of exciting actually to go vote in-person,” Rollins said. “The whole voting process can be confusing, especially being on campus. You don’t know where to go, so having central resources like this at the UMMA and the Dude is really helpful.”

Unlike absentee voting, where ballots are sealed and counted later, early voting allows voters to fill out their ballot in person and feed it directly to a tabulator, just as they would on Election Day. However, the machines do not tally the results until polls close.

Wayne County, which has 14 early voting centers, was the first jurisdiction in Michigan to start early voting for the general election on Oct. 19. Other communities, like East Lansing and Canton Township, also began early voting ahead of the required nine-day window.

U-M alum Ronnie Sharangpani emphasized the importance of civic engagement and urged people to get out the vote in an interview with The Daily.

“Whether you personally care about voting, I get that life gets busy, and it might not be on your mind even during election time, but maintain and exert your will on both yourself and systemic issues,” Sharangpani said. “It’s pretty much imperative that you should vote and be civically engaged.”

LSA senior Julia Rehring told The Daily that she chose to cast her ballot in person over voting absentee because it felt important to exercise her voting rights even before Election Day.

“It’s my first election I get to vote for president, so super excited about it and wanted to vote in person because I’ve only ever mailed in my ballot before, and I thought it might be crazy on Election Day,” Rehring said. “I think using your vote and the freedom we have to vote is really important no matter what.”

Daily Staff Reporter Shane Baum can be reached at smbaum@umich.edu. 

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