Michigan Counties Take Quick Advantage of Absentee Voting
It's not just election season, the race has effectively started. Many states have begun to accept absentee ballots and early voting for the 2024 presidential election. Michigan is one of those states to see many voters take advantage of their absentee votes.
According to the Michigan Department of State via MLive, about 10.8% of Michigan's 8.4 million registered voters have already submitted an absentee ballot. At that number, more than 670k total votes, 31% of all absentee ballots have been returned for counting. Just three weeks before election day, that number will continue to grow.
Mlive took the data from the Michigan Department of State and displayed the top 10 counties in Michigan that have utilized absentee voting at the highest percentage relative to the number of registered voters in the county and also the 10 counties with the least usage.
The top 10 counties according to the data are:
- Leelanau County - 14.8%
- Emmet County - 12.7%
- Ingham County - 11.6%
- Grand Traverse County - 11.6%
- Marquette County - 11.3%
- Charlevoix County - 11%
- Roscommon County - 10.4%
- Eaton County - 10.1%
- Clinton County - 10%
- Benzie County - 9.8%
The bottom 10 counties are:
- Newaygo County - 2.3%
- Jackson County - 3.2%
- Oscoda County - 3.3%
- Houghton County - 3.8%
- Cheboygan - 3.8%
- Arenac County - 4.4%
- Clare County - 4.5%
- Sanilac County - 4.9%
- Calhoun County - 5.3%
- Mackinac County - 5.3%
Mail-in voting was quite common in the last election as the country recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic. In Michigan, roughly 3.3 million of the 5.5 million votes cast in Michigan were cast via absentee voting. Typically, and particularly in 2020, most absentee voters vote Democrat while more in-person voters on election day vote Republican.
This sparked some concern among GOP leaders, particularly in Michigan's case. However, an extensive Republican-led investigation found no fraudulent activity in the 2020 election when it came to the state's absentee votes.
Relative to the data, the absentee ballots accounted for so far come from both left and right-leaning counties based on the 2020 election results. For example, Leelanau County voted 52-48.6 for Biden in the 2020 election whereas Emmet voted 54.7-43.6 for Trump.
All 10 of the counties with the fewest absentee ballots turned in so far voted for Trump four years ago. Three of the top 10 voted for Biden: Leelanau, Ingham and Marquette.
While Wayne County wasn't included in the top 10 counties, Detroit, naturally, still leads the way with total absentee votes cast so far in the state. According to the Detroit Free Press, over 41k absentee ballots have been returned in the Motor City, the most of any city in the state. Just over 100k were applied for in Detroit for this election cycle.
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Gallery Credit: Rob Carroll