| Contributing columnist
Michigan’s crucial November elections: Key races, how to vote
Michigan’s November elections will be crucial, with key races in the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives. Here’s how to vote and make sure your voice is heard.
Today, November 5, at 6 a.m., while most of you Free Press readers are probably just stirring the pot, I and my loved ones are dragging our mostly caffeinated heads to an election precinct near our home in Lansing. We know the trick from recent years. There we will join other local people – specifically, like us, US citizens, and all trained in election day rules and protocols (as required by law) – gathered to set up voting booths, sample ballots and voting cards on the walls and the 30 meters from the voting area where no political campaigns can take place.
Oh, before we do any of that, we will also take an oath to support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of Michigan and to faithfully discharge our duties as inspectors, according to Section 168.680 of the Michigan Compiled Laws. This is required; we cannot work as inspectors unless we swear to do so.
After the busy work we begin the fun of setting up the all important tabulator and the all important electronic poll book. This involves a number of stages, all of which are again required by law and regulation to ensure that the tabulator has not previously been tampered with. We must ensure that it is not tampered with on election day.
Make a list, check it twice
Does the tabulator show zero votes for all candidates and issues? Bill. Is the seal number on the tabulator the same number recorded by the local election commission before the tabulator was sent to the precinct location? Bill. Are the only ballots that will be used in the election kept in a sealed bag, and are they all blank? Bill. Oh, the slot where write-in ballots are held until everything is closed, is that empty? Bill. By 7 a.m. on Election Day, have all inspectors signed the preliminary totals generated by the tabulator certifying that no votes were cast for any candidate or issue in that precinct through that tabulator? Bill. And the tabulator list goes on and on.
At the magical moment of 7 a.m., the precinct chair steps just outside the polling station door to announce, “Hear, hear, this polling place is now open!” Usually there are a number of people waiting to cast their votes before going to work, and they walk right in.
These early morning voters are the first participants in the verification process of who they are before they receive their ballot. Anyone who comes in to vote that day – it could be an inspector’s parents, siblings or even their children (and there have been times when family members came to vote) – will have to meet the same verification requirements.
First they must fill out a ballot form, with their name, address, date of birth and signature. They will be asked to show identification: driver’s license, state ID, U.S. passport, military ID, and a handful of other acceptable IDs. One inspector will look at the person, look at the card and verify the voter’s identity. A voter who does not have an ID can fill out a legal document called an affidavit that they are who they say they are. Lying on an affidavit is perjurya crime punishable by a prison sentence of up to 15 years.
The signature they wrote on their voting request is verified against the signature in the electronic voting book.
Only after these steps are completed will the voter receive a ballot, with a privacy cover. The ballot is in a pocket at the front. The voter then goes to a voting booth, fills out the ballot, and then takes the ballot to another inspector, who removes the voter’s ballot request from its sleeve and tears off a perforated tab with the ballot number from the bottom of the ballot. Removing the number ensures that it is a secret ballot and cannot be traced back to the specific voter.
Finally, the voter goes to the tabulator, inserts the ballot, and waits for the tabulator to make a sort of click (it’s a thumping, clicking sound). When you hear that sound, the votes have been counted. And then they get to pick up the all-important “I Voted” sticker, and there are all kinds handy stickers this year that you can choose from.
Strictness, severity, everywhere
Are you exhausted yet? Yes, if all goes well, the process from start to finish will take you, the voter, about ten minutes, assuming there are no delays, such as long lines.
If you vote absentee or early and in person, you will still need to authenticate before actually voting. It’s the same process, it’s just… done before. More and more people are voting early (I did too), but the essential security and verification systems are just as rigorous and successful.
Please note: everything described above, all the steps to check the tabulation, the poll book and the voters themselves, together with the legal authority given to us, the inspectors, to ensure that only registered, confirmed voters vote and that the process is carried out in an orderly manner. way is to ensure that there is no fraud.
Come down and watch us
Oh, and: All of this is public. From the moment we start assembling the voting booths, to the moment we remove the voting booths some 15 hours later and go through the equally complicated process of closing and verifying the security of the tabulator and the ballots cast , you can sit there at the ballot box. polling place and look at us. Seats will even be reserved. The various parties appoint election challengers, who have some authority to control who votes. But anyone can follow polls, as long as they don’t interfere with the process.
Moreover, we inspectors must be both Democrats and Republicans. No independents allowed. Again, all of this is codified in state law, which was first passed when a man named Eisenhower was in the White House and a man nicknamed Soapy was our governor.
All this, and yet countless people claim the system is corrupt. It isn’t, but they insist it is, without any evidence. Except of course their guy lost, so the system must be corrupt.
No evidence of voter fraud, no minds changed
The informal “official” view of the Republican Party for years has been that the system is corrupt. Former President Donald Trump insists he was robbed of victory in 2020, and his most serious supporters believe him, not the opposite. Most elected Republicans are cowardly and unwilling to say that Trump lost the 2020 election – which he did. The last two leaders of the Michigan Republican Party have been election deniers.
Heritage Foundation — those smart people who gave you Project 2025 – says voter fraud is a major problem and warns us that our system is subject to all kinds of attacks. But they cannot conclusively prove that claim. If they can prove voter fraud has occurred, it will largely occur in isolated incidents involving small numbers. They can’t prove it’s a huge problem, but say“We can say with confidence that there are far too many vulnerabilities in our current system. The most important thing is that people need to have confidence in the outcome, which is difficult in large part because of the vulnerabilities that currently exist.” Only they don’t identify those ‘vulnerabilities’, and they don’t say why they don’t do so. If it’s such a critical problem, help us guys.
In that recent study – you can find it online – the Heritage Foundation said a “non-exhaustive” sample found 1,561 cases of voter fraud in the country. If you look closer, you’ll see that the incidents they cite date back as far as 40 years in some states, a period that includes thousands of elections in thousands of locations.
It found 17 incidents in Michigan dating back 17 years to 2007 (involving one case). a Benton Harbor minister who pays $5 per vote for people in a soup kitchen). That’s 17 incidents in 17 years, during the thousands of elections held in Michigan’s 83 counties, 276 cities, 257 villages, 1,240 townships and 539 school districts for thousands of elected positions, and who knows how many different ballot propositions there are. In a state where mainly Republican officials run the elections. Pardon me if I pass out from the fumes.
The real threat is… threats
It’s the same nationwide, with most incidents cited involving no more than one or two possible votes, and without any suggestion that any of these incidents actually influenced an election outcome.
According to Heritage, Vermont and Delaware had no fraud incidents. Utah only had one.
Moreover, Heritage found its proof because all the incidents involved real thugs. They were caught, they were tried. Which, even more emphatically, indicates that the system works.
Oh, but many of our dearly beloved but clearly misguided brethren are not convinced. And unfortunately, some of them are troubling. There have been threats of violence against local clerks and poll workers. There have been so many threats across the country it’s going to be difficult to find people willing to work the polls, both out of fear and because so many Republicans don’t trust the system that they won’t participate.
Here in Michigan, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson has added funding and increased efforts to keep voters and poll workers safe.
The weirdest part
And here’s the strange thing: people want to a safe system.
People recently surveyed by the Democracy Defense Project explain how they think the system can be made safe.
You know what? The steps they want are already present. I have just laid them out for you.
Personally, I like to vote in person, even with the convenience of voting by mail – it’s the only system in Utah and Washington State. It creates a nice sense of community. If you run multiple elections in the same district, you will see some of the same people in each election.
At one precinct, we all applauded every time a new voter placed his or her ballot in the tabulator.
And there was an elderly couple, immigrants but long-time citizens, one weak and in need of help from the other, who came in before noon. They helped each other from station to station, determinedly put their ballots into the voting machine and then smiled at each other.
However you vote, vote, dammit. It’s safe, it’s your duty and you’ll smile afterwards.
Free Press columnist John Lindstrom has covered Michigan politics for fifty years. In 2019, he retired as publisher of Gongwer, a Lansing-based news service. Send a letter to the editor at freep.com/lettersand we can publish it online or in print.