Michigan vote tabulation mostly complete: Which ballots are left to count

Michigan’s top election official touted a successful 2024 election and said tabulation is mostly complete, earlier than it was four years ago.

There are, however, about 6,000 outstanding military and overseas ballots that will be added to the unofficial results if they are postmarked by Election Day and received by Nov. 12, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said Wednesday during a news conference in Detroit. Although there were no significant and widespread counting issues, there was a hold up in uploading data onto Wayne County’s website late into Tuesday evening and early Wednesday morning. The Bureau of Elections is working with the county to understand what happened, she said.

“Certainly for close races that exist, the biggest and most significant … outstanding chunk of votes is coming from those overseas ballots and I’ll mention it’s not a guarantee that all 6,000 will return by Tuesday,” Benson said.

With 98% of estimated votes counted, Donald Trump won Michigan, according to the unofficial tally from the Associated Press. Trump received 50% of votes, compared with 48% for Vice President Kamala Harris.

Benson said it was too early for her to predict what it means that Trump is heading back to the White House.

“There’s going to be a lot of conversations in the days ahead about next steps and what comes next,” Benson said. “But I see Michigan voters at this point, they’re very engaged and enthusiastic, perhaps have different opinions about the type of leadership they want to see but we see women continuing to win elections here in the states. We also see the issue of economics … being top of mind.”

In 2020, President Joe Biden won Michigan with 51% of the votes. Trump received 48% of the votes in the battleground state four years ago.

More than 5.5 million Michiganders voted. Currently, turnout on Election Day 2024 was about the same as it was four years ago as the department waits for other ballots, including overseas tallies, Benson said.

“This is our third straight election cycle where voters turned out in record numbers, and that’s what we’re seeing as a victory,” Benson said.

Benson said 2.2 million voted from home, casting absentee ballots; 1.2 million voted early in person, and more than 2 million voted in person on Election Day. Nearly 22,000 people registered on Election Day, with many in East Lansing, Ann Arbor, Grand Rapids and Detroit, she said.

This year, Michiganders were allowed to vote early for the general election. Benson said her department expected half of the 1.2 million who showed up to vote during the early voting period.

“It was just a convenient option that people all around the state embraced. And that, to me, for us as election administrators, is really the biggest success story of this election,” she said.

Benson also said her department is aware of non-credible bomb threats that targeted polling locations in Washtenaw, Wayne, Genesee and Saginaw counties, which the FBI tied to Russia.

A couple hiccups in Macomb County

Macomb County Clerk Anthony Forlini said Wednesday morning there was a holdup with absentee ballot votes in Shelby Township. Just before 11 a.m. Wednesday, the county’s website did update with 100% of precincts reporting.

According to the Secretary of State’s website, Shelby Township had 20,137 absentee ballots returned. The township was not on the state’s list of communities to preprocess absentee ballots.

“This is an example of why should you pre-tabulate, run through your problems,” Forlini said. “When you’re a community like Shelby Township, it makes sense, even if it’s one day before.”

The township also is where Clerk Stanley Grot is among a group of Michigan Republicans criminally charged for allegedly participating in an effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Grot was among those charged last year by the state’s attorney general for allegedly signing a phony certificate pledging the state’s Electoral College votes to Trump.

Last year, the director of Michigan’s Bureau of Elections notified Grot that he could no longer administer elections, including registering voters and issuing ballots. He also directed the township’s deputy clerk to perform election duties until further notice or until Grot is acquitted or has the charges against him dismissed. The case is still open, according to online district court records.

Grot easily won reelection as clerk Tuesday as he had no Democratic opponent in the township, which leans Republican. All of the GOP incumbents seeking reelection in the township − supervisor, clerk and treasurer as well as the four trustees − won, per unofficial results on the county clerk’s website.

Forlini said there also was an issue with a memory stick with data from early voting in New Baltimore and those ballots, about 2,400, had to be rerun.

Forlini gave a “hats off” to Warren Clerk Sonja Buffa for getting results to the county in a timely fashion.

Buffa did not preprocess Warren’s absentee ballots, of which there were 25,439, per the Secretary of State’s website. He said Buffa, herself, brought in sticks with data, most of them about 1:30 a.m. Wednesday. He said she made three trips “and we appreciate that.”

“People are waiting on these results,” Forlini said. “People want to know what’s going on. It’s about everyone who is waiting on information.”

There was concern from Warren city officials and others about Buffa’s decision not to preprocess the absentee ballots and about how quickly city election results would get to the county on election night, possibly holding up local, state and national results.

Forlini said he personally picked up sticks from Chesterfield Township as part of a program provided by his office and the sheriff in which a sheriff’s deputy and county clerk’s employee will go to municipalities and pick up sticks with data — in a secure process − and get them to the county’s election department in Mount Clemens.

Forlini said it’s difficult to be compared to other counties that can modem in election results. He said his staff uploaded results as soon as clerks countywide were done with them and got them to the county, the third most populous in Michigan.