Michigan’s elections are under pressure, but clerks and poll workers say they’re ready for Nov. 5

(FOX2) – When Don Kavanagh walked into his Sterling Heights city office in 2016, all he wanted to do was pay a bill. By the time he left, he would be the community’s newest election inspector.

He decided to sign up after seeing messages in the neighborhood pleading for help working on the upcoming election. “It turned out to be an interesting race, and a good opportunity for people watching,” he joked.

Eight years later, he’s still running for office and this year will be one of the Sterling Heights precinct chairmen. He is a teacher by profession and has worked in every position necessary to manage the voting process.

Election days are long, he admits, but they are even more rewarding. When 18-year-old voters cast their first vote, they applaud. And over the past few cycles — some of the most consequential in modern American history — he has met 50- and 60-year-old voters who had never voted before.

“2016 brought them out of the woodwork. It was an important election and people who had never voted before decided to participate,” he said. “That will probably happen again this year.”

On November 5, Michigan’s thousands of precincts will be staffed by people like Kavanagh. Most arrive an hour before the polls open and leave an hour after they close. From 7 a.m. to 8 p.m., the slow wheels of democracy will turn until the last voter in line has cast their vote.

In an effort to get those wheels turning a little easier, Michigan has made it easier to vote and make counting those votes easier. In Detroit, the clerk hopes to have done that 100% of the city’s results reported by midnight. New registration centers are being set up in Ann Arbor to help new voters.

There is even one new online dashboard for anyone who wants to see how many people voted.

Early voting is available at all precincts for the first time, while absentee ballots can be preprocessed before Election Day. These rules are new this cycle, but many of the people working the polls have been here before.

“Our job is to solve problems and make sure every voter who walks through the door has the best experience possible,” said Vicki Waldron.

Waldron is another precinct chair in Sterling Heights, and if she walks into her precinct on Election Day, it will be her second presidential run that the polls show is working. The long day is made easier by friends and family who bring coffee, donuts and food to keep the workers going.

“We’re in a great location, so we don’t normally have any issues,” she said. “People are nice. You see different generations bringing us snacks and treats, just to say ‘thank you for your work.'”

Election Bill Whiplash

Michigan has updated its voting rules in recent years, making it easier and more convenient to vote while also reducing the burden on poll workers who do the work of tabulating.

But the extra steps are still an adjustment, and for clerks like Melanie Ryska in Sterling Heights, it requires additional staffing and training.

“The efforts we have made to make voting easier should be commended. I also believe that the challenges administrators have had to face have been exhausting,” she said. “It’s whiplash, and we all suffer from that at times — and PTSD from 2020 because it was so challenging.”

Since then, Michigan has tried to ease the burden on voters and poll workers.

The state is not expecting the same number of absentee ballots as in 2020, when the pandemic changed voting habits. However, Michigan has still updated its election laws so poll workers can get to work processing those ballots more quickly.

In November of this year, workers will have eight days to pre-process absentee ballots so they can receive them in the mail, open the envelope and place it in the tabulation. The final step of releasing the results will only take place after the polls close.

The most densely populated areas can be the busiest, but that often comes with more available workers to keep lines down. It may be a different story in rural communities that are still expected to work all 13 hours at the polls, but with fewer staff.

“It’s a fun day. It’s a long day,” said Christina Smith, the city clerk of Lodi in Washtenaw County. “You know, things that you think can’t happen will happen, but you just go with it and you do the best you can given the situation you’re in.”

In the hyper-partisan age of politics, Smith is uniquely positioned to lead township elections and run for office at the same time. Even as confidence in the nation’s election infrastructure wavers, she says she’s not concerned about her voters trusting her to obey her oath of office.

“I grew up in this township. I’ve lived here all my life,” she said. “They know I play by the book and there are no shortcuts. I’m here to do my job and that’s what I’m going to do.”

Smith expects Election Day to be easier than in years past because of the new early voting option and no-excuse absentee ballot option for voters. That could reduce the number of voters on Election Day on Nov. 5, but it also means finding staff for nine days of early voting.

A short drive northeast of Lodi Township is Ann Arbor, where clerk Jackie Beaudry faces several challenges. Staffing the polling stations is not a problem, but the university town is home to many young people who may be eager to vote but are not necessarily registered in the city.

“We are one of the larger cities in Michigan, but because we are a college town, we also have satellite offices to register and issue absentee ballots,” she said.

Beaudry said they lobbied for updated laws after long lines formed during the 2022 midterm elections. An unexpected wave of new voters meant the final vote was not included in the table until 1 a.m. the next day.

This cycle there will be centers specifically focused on registering voters while making it easier to register to vote.

“We hope that both of these things will accelerate any increase on Election Day,” she said.

A circle of responsibility

The process of administering elections in Michigan is largely a human process, meaning it relies on trained officials who are part of a ballot’s journey every step of the way.

For many Americans, it’s not a process they trust. A September Gallup poll found that 43% have no confidence in the accuracy of US elections. But ask the people behind that process and they tell a different story.

“I firmly believe that if you have any concerns about the way the polls work and how the elections work, you should run an election,” Vicki Waldron said. “There are so many processes and procedures to ensure everything runs smoothly that day.”

When Waldron’s friends come to her with questions, she always offers to “volunteer with me.”

She added: “It’s great. It’s a great way to learn. And then you can answer those questions and you can feel confident.”

Michigan’s election system is also designed to be replicable. Filling out a ballot creates a paper trail at each precinct that allows employees to hand count each vote after it has been entered into a tabulation, in case a recount is needed to declare a winner.

All ballots are retained by the clerk, whether tabulated or decayed. And attached to each ballot is a perforated tab with the voter’s information printed on it. Before a ballot is inserted into the tabulator, the tab is removed by a poll worker. This process makes the vote anonymous and still records whether someone participated.

There are also checks and balances for counting absentee ballots – as well as a robust system to ensure that ballots arriving at the clerk’s office are completed by the people they are addressed to.

Warren City Clerk Sonja Buffa says the first thing her office does when they receive a ballot is to make sure the signature on the envelope matches the voter’s signature in their qualified voter file. If they don’t match, they will contact the voter.

She estimates that about 95% of the signatures match. And if they don’t, it’s not because someone is committing fraud. Usually the signature of the voters has been changed.

“The system that we have with the state of Michigan, some of those signatures can be five years old and the signatures change,” she said. “I know I’ve changed my signature. Even the way I signed ten years or five years ago is different from how I sign now.”

One city where false allegations of fraud emerged during the absentee count process in 2020 was Detroit. City Clerk Janice Winfrey remembers those who crowded outside downtown as “election deniers attacked the absentee voting process.”

She is encouraged by the new pre-processing rules before Election Day, which will allow election challengers to attend and ensure the election is properly conducted. It not only reduces the workload for employees, but also makes it easier to publish unofficial results.

“I worry about stories that you have no control over. That’s why we will get our job done quickly, at a professional level and at a level of perfection, because when you see that we are all ready and everything is in balance, the big lie – it doesn’t matter,” she said.