Voters shelter in polling place bathroom during Michigan tornado warning on Election Day

ST. JOSEPH COUNTY, MI — Severe storms hit the area hard as the polls were open for voting on Election Day in Southwest Michigan, causing a temporary disruption.

At some voting locations in St. Joseph County, voters were asked to shelter in place during a tornado warning that hit the area Tuesday morning.

A storm with warnings of a possible tornado rolled through Michigan on the morning of Tuesday, Aug. 6, destroying trees, damaging buildings, flooding streets and cutting off power for thousands of electrical customers in the area.

As of early afternoon Tuesday, there have been no confirmed reports of a tornado.

Three voting precincts in St. Joseph County temporarily lost power during the storm, Undersheriff Jason Bingaman said. Two of the locations had emergency power generators, though the Flowerfield Township Hall location did not, so the sheriff’s office brought in a generator to get the building back online after a power outage from the storm.

The township hall is located at 12020 M-216, in Marcellus. It is about 25 miles south of Kalamazoo, in St. Joseph County.

Voters and election workers sheltered at some precincts, including in two bathrooms at Flowerfield Township Hall, St. Joseph County Clerk and Register of Deeds Lindsay Oswald said.

The building is a former schoolhouse that is about 175 years old, township Supervisor Ron Shaver said.

Though the building lost power, Oswald said, the voting machinery has a battery backup that allowed workers to continue the voting process after they stopped sheltering, when the storm had passed.

“Our process is built to be resilient,” Oswald said. “It’s Michigan, we know the weather is going to be crazy here. You can’t rely on it.

“We have to have those procedures in place and we have to be ready for anything,” she said.

The generator was brought in to ensure the location had power for the rest of the day, she said. They also brought in a lamp to run off the generator, to give election workers some light, she said.

Polling locations in Burr Oak and Colon also lost power and had generators in place, she said.

Oswald and other officials were busy monitoring weather conditions Tuesday morning and communicating with poll workers about when they needed to take shelter, she said. The main concern for severe weather in the county overall was from 7:50 a.m. to 9 a.m., she said.

At 8:09 a.m., a severe thunderstorm capable of producing a tornado was located near Marcellus, the National Weather Service said.

Township workers did a great job during the storm, Oswald said. People sheltered for less than a half hour, she said.

Bingaman is one of five candidates running for the office, facing Dennis Allen, Joe Bingaman, Gordon L. Evilsizor and Chad Spence, to become the county’s next sheriff.

Bingaman said officials worked together to try to make sure the polls would stay open so people could vote.

“It’s the proverbial, it’s going to happen on a day you don’t want it to,” Bingaman said.

The county was under a tornado warning for about a half hour, Bingaman said.

MLive/Kalamazoo Gazette has reached out to the township clerk seeking comment.

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