2020 Election

Your vote won’t count even if your ballot is postmarked by Election Day. The Michigan Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal arguing for that.

Instead your ballot must arrive at the clerk’s office by 8:00 p.m. Election Day to be counted.

The COVID-19 pandemic has made a lot of things much more difficult. And with less than one week until the August primary day, voting is the latest challenge for many Michiganders.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed into law on Tuesday a measure that should speed up election results in November.

The new law allows city or township clerks to create an "absent voting counting board" with other local clerks to join forces to count absentee ballots.

Concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic are scrapping plans for a 2020 presidential debate taking place in Ann Arbor this fall as planned. 

The University of Michigan was scheduled to host the second of the three debates between President Donald Trump and presumptive Democratic nominee former vice president Joe Biden on October 15.

But university officials this week withdrew from the debate hosting duties, saying it would be not be “feasible” to safely host the presidential debate as planned.

All voting would be done by absentee ballot under a bill introduced Wednesday by State Senator Jeff Irwin (D-Ann Arbor). The bill would end in-person voting at polling places.

Under the bill, registered voters would return their ballots by mail or drop them off at designated, local sites.

Michigan election officials have agreed to allow visually impaired voters to use software to complete an absentee ballot in local elections Tuesday. The deal filed in federal court Friday is a temporary fix in an ongoing lawsuit. Voters with visual impairments will have an opportunity to request an absentee ballot typically reserved for military personnel or citizens who are out of the country. The ballots can be completed using electronic reader software. They still must be mailed or delivered to local clerks.

Two Michigan registered voters have sued Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson in federal court, claiming that Michigan's absentee voting system violates the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The plaintiffs, Michael Powell and Fred Wurtzel, are both blind. Powell is the president of the Michigan Affiliate of the National Federation of the Blind, and Wurtzel is its former president.

U.S. District Judge Terrence Berg held an emergency hearing Thursday morning on the state's request that he modify the order he issued Monday lowering signature requirements for certain candidates to be on the ballot in the August primary. 

Judge Berg ruled in the Esshaki case that the April 21 filing deadline be extended until May 8, that electronic signature gathering be allowed, and that the minumum signatures required be cut in half.