When do election results come out in Michigan? Don't expect them right away

In 2020, Michigan voters did not have complete unofficial election results on election night. The same could be true this year.

The Secretary of State's Office expects unofficial results that reflect every ballot counted will be available within about 24 hours from when the polls close at 8 p.m. on Nov. 8.

In recent elections, about half of voters cast an absentee ballot which take longer to process and count than ballots cast in person at polling locations. "There is a reality that the workflow of counting absentee ballots is really time-intensive," said Ottawa County Clerk Justin Roebuck during a recent news briefing. "Beyond the speed, we want to make sure that it's right."

With the upcoming midterm election on track to see high voter turnout, that means election officials across Michigan anticipate a large volume of absentee ballots.

But election workers cannot begin counting absentee ballots until 7 a.m. on Election Day when polling locations open. Some municipalities will undertake the initial steps of preparing an absentee ballot to be counted on Election Day, but election administrators say the preprocessing measures in place in Michigan won't significantly expedite the count.

Several factors will impact when election administrators will have unofficial results to report, and election officials have urged voters to be patient.

"The last thing somebody wants is for a clerk to rush," said Harrison Township Clerk Adam Wit, who serves as president of the Michigan Association of Municipal Clerks.

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Preprocessing doesn't include tabulating ballots, many big cities to skip it

Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and the GOP-led Legislature reached a last-minute deal to allow clerks in some Michigan communities to begin processing but not counting ballots before Election Day. For some clerks, the change came too late for them to shift plans and take advantage of the preprocessing, according to the Secretary of State's Office.

For others, the preprocessing approved by lawmakers wasn't the time-saver they wanted because it doesn't allow them to start tabulating ballots until Election Day. Under Michigan's new preprocessing law, election workers can open the return envelopes containing absentee ballots and check that the number on the stub attached to the ballot matches the number on the envelope. Clerks cannot remove absentee ballots from the secrecy sleeve or tabulate them. A majority of states allow ballots to be scanned into tabulators before Election Day, according to an analysis from the Bipartisan Policy Center.

In total, 39 municipalities in Michigan plan to preprocess ballots, including some of the state's biggest cities like Detroit, Grand Rapids, Ann Arbor and Troy. But some of Michigan's largest cities like Warren, Sterling Heights, Lansing, Dearborn, Livonia and Westland plan to skip preprocessing ahead of the Nov. 8 election.

More:Whitmer signs election law changes including ballot preprocessing

Clerks must receive absentee ballots by 8 p.m. on Election Day

Clerks must receive absentee ballots by 8 p.m. on Election Day. While election officials can begin counting absentee ballots starting at 7 a.m. on Election Day, they'll have a new batch of ballots that roll in by the 8 p.m. deadline that need to be verified before they can be counted.

Depending on how many voters wait to return their ballots until the evening of Nov. 8, the process could take awhile. Election workers must collect ballots from drop boxes and verify the voter's signature on the return envelope before sending them to counting rooms for tabulation.

It's a process that takes time. For instance, during the 2020 presidential election in Detroit, ballots arrived to the counting room early in the morning the day after the election to be counted.

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Unofficial election results in some counties driven to clerks' offices

Most counties in Michigan no longer use modems to transmit unofficial election results from polling locations.

"We're essentially across the country in the process of decommissioning the electronic transmission of results directly from tabulators," Roebuck said. The shift was prompted, in part, by misinformation about the use of modems and guidance from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, according to the Secretary of State's Office.

In some counties, clerks drive memory cards containing unofficial results to the county clerk's office and in others, local clerks collect the cards from polling locations and transmit them to the county clerk's office which then posts them online.

Relying on hand-delivering results takes longer compared with transmitting them via modems. "There's just no way around that," said Roebuck.

"It just delays everything," said Wit.

When results were "modemed" in previously, polling locations could transmit them within five minutes of closing, Wit said. In the recent August primary, Wit said that most tabulators in Harrison Township were shut off at 8:05 p.m., but he didn't drop off the unofficial results at the county clerk's office until about 10:45 p.m. The Macomb County Clerk's Office indicates that the latest municipality in Macomb County to report unofficial results was Eastpointe, whose results came through at 4:18 a.m. the day after the recent August primary, according to the county clerk's website.

Wayne County completed its unofficial election results report about 7 a.m. the day after the recent August primary, about 2½ hours later than Macomb County, according to the Wayne County Clerk's Office.

"It often gets overlooked that Wayne County is the largest county in the State of Michigan, and consists of 918 precincts," said Lisa Williams, a spokesperson for the clerk's office, in an email. "Wayne County has 43 local clerks who administer their elections and then report their results. Wayne County isn't able to report results until they are received by each local clerk."

The Free Press will be monitoring results as they come in, and relies on the Associated Press to call races.

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How unofficial election results become official

Across Michigan, turnout in the upcoming midterm is expected to significantly exceed turnout in the August primary, which means more ballots to process and a potentially longer time between when the polls close and voters have unofficial results.

After election workers have counted every ballot, county boards of canvassers will begin reviewing election results and election materials as part of a post-election review. County boards of canvassers have until Nov. 22 to finalize the results in the county and certify the outcomes of contests within county lines. The Board of State Canvassers then has until Nov. 28 to certify the results of statewide races and those that cross county lines based on the vote totals received from the counties.

The Secretary of State's Office recommends voters request an absentee ballot in person at their local clerk's office or satellite office to avoid potential postal delays. The office also recommends that voters who have already received an absentee ballot fill it out and return it in person at the local clerk's office or via a ballot drop box. Those eligible have until 8 p.m. on Election Day to register to vote and cast a ballot at their local clerk's office. Polling locations are open at 7 a.m. and close at 8 p.m. on Nov. 8.

Clara Hendrickson fact-checks Michigan issues and politics as a corps member with Report for America, an initiative of The GroundTruth Project. Make a tax-deductible contribution to support her work at bit.ly/freepRFA. Contact her at chendrickson@freepress.com or 313-296-5743. Follow her on Twitter @clarajanehen.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: When do election results come out in Michigan?