Lansing — About 1.2 million people voted at early, in-person voting sites across Michigan in the first presidential election where the state constitution allowed for the voting option.

The number of Michigan voters — updated by the Secretary of State’s office early Monday morning after the conclusion of early, in-person voting — represent more than one-fifth of the total who cast ballots in the 2020 presidential election. When the 1.98 million absentee ballots received as of Sunday night are added, the total number of early voters moves to about 3.2 million, or nearly 44% of active registered voters in Michigan.

The total number of early voters so far is on par with 2020, when roughly 3.2 million people voted absentee ballots during the pandemic. A total of nearly 5.6 million voted in that presidential election.

A constitutional amendment passed by voters in 2022 requires all clerks to offer at least nine days of early, in-person voting ahead of Election Day, a mandate that resulted in the majority of communities offering early voting from Saturday, Oct. 26 through Sunday. Three communities opted to open voting centers earlier: Detroit, Canton Township and East Lansing.

Some of the highest numbers of early, in-person voters turned out in Detroit, with a final tally of 42,902 people voting sites in the state’s largest city. Additionally, Detroit has received back about 89,000 of roughly 109,000 absentee ballots sent, according to the Secretary of State’s office.

“We knew they would be eager for it,” Detroit Clerk Janice Winfrey said Sunday of early, in-person voting. “This is our first year doing it in Detroit. It started out slow — you know, the presidential primary, was slow — but I am so pleased with turnout.”

Winfrey said lines for early voting topped out at about an hour and 10 minutes, but voters weren’t deterred by the wait.

“It’s impressive to see,” Winfrey said. “Everybody’s energy is high. Nobody’s mad about being in line. And that’s the part that I’m thankful for.”

Rural turnout

Chris Ferguson was among the more than 1.2 million who cast a ballot in-person at an early voting site in Shiawassee County. The 59-year-old Owosso teacher stopped at Owosso City Hall on Sunday to cast a ballot while running errands.

Ferguson said she likely could have made time Tuesday to cast her ballot but decided to stop by on a day when she had less on her plate.

“Everybody that I know has voted early,” Ferguson said. “They just thought it was so nice, no pressure, convenient. I’m on my way to the grocery store and then I’m going to go home and rake leaves.”

Owosso City Clerk Amy Kirkland said Sunday afternoon that her office saw a marked uptick in early, in-person voters compared to the August primary.

“Our traffic has really picked up,” Kirkland said. “In August, we had 100 voters over nine days. The last time I checked downstairs, we had over 1,300 for this election. Early voting seems to have really caught on.”

The mid-Michigan city, which has about 12,200 registered voters, also issued about 2,500 absentee ballots, Kirkland said. She expects the use of early, in-person options to increase as more people learn of the option.

“I actually like early voting and, if it continues to grow the way I think it will, we may actually be able to cut down on our costs on Election Day,” Kirkland said.

In the northeast Lower Peninsula, Alpena Township Clerk Michele Palevich said Sunday that roughly 2,000 people have circulated through an early voting site the township is operating with the city of Alpena.

She was pleased with the early, in-person turnout, which was much steadier than the trickle the township saw in August. On one of the nine days of early voting in August, a total of six people visited the early voting site, she said.

“This is the first election where I’ve really seen the benefit of it, where we’re getting a good turnout,” Palevich said. “When we’re getting a good turnout, it feels beneficial. But when we’re getting days with just six voters, it doesn’t feel that beneficial.”

In southern Livingston County, Kristina Behm made good time Saturday getting through the line at her Putnam Township early voting center.

“It’s kind of nice to just get it done over the weekend and then you don’t have to go before work or after work or whatever,” said Behm, 31. “It’s great for people who have lives and things happen.”

Urban and suburban use

At Lansing’s Reo Road voting center Saturday afternoon, voters waited about 20 minutes to fill out their ballots — part of a steady stream of voters the city has seen over the nine days of early voting, City Clerk Chris Swope said. The capital city also had a second early voting site at Foster Community Center.

The city was one of several pilot communities to roll out early, in-person voting sooner than the rest of the state. Lansing offered some period of early voting ahead of its November 2023 election, the presidential primary in February, a city election in May and the August primary.

Early, in-person voting numbers were much smaller in those earlier elections, which typically have lower turnout than a presidential election, Swope said.

“It was really great to see it catch on and see voters coming out,” Swope said. “And it’s really just people coming all day long.”

In Kent County, each jurisdiction ran its own early voting centers, with Grand Rapids hosting four within the city alone, said Kent County Clerk Lisa Posthumus Lyons. Countywide, about 96,265 early, in-person votes were cast within Kent County, she said.

Lyons said she was relieved to see the early, in-person voting centers used after attendance was underwhelming in the February presidential primary and August primary. Participation in the county’s first day of early voting on Oct. 26 was double the February and August early, in-person voting tallies together, she said.

“I think early voting in Michigan has proven to work and proven to be secure,” Lyons said Sunday. “And the voters have proven that they are interested in it.”

Lyons said Kent County’s absentee numbers are down from 2020, but it’s hard to tell just yet if that’s an effect of the pandemic or voters shifting from absentee to early, in-person. Until a better trend is established, it’s difficult anticipate how each voting option will be utilized, she said.

“Things went smoothly, but we had lines,” Lyons said. “Not knowing where the baseline would be with this being our first large turnout election with early voting, we didn’t know what to expect.”

West Michigan wasn’t the only region experiencing lines at it’s early, in-person voting centers.

In DeWitt, 23-year-old Brayden Shaw walked into the city’s early voting site around noon only to walk back out again after seeing the line. Voters leaving the voting site said they had waited about an hour and 10 minutes in line.

Shaw said he planned to return later in the day or early Tuesday to cast his ballot. He said, next time, he may find a weekday to vote.

“I think it’s smart to cut down on lines on Election Day,” Shaw said. “But I think everyone has the same mindset to try and vote early because they think it’s going to be shorter lines. And then that just causes a backup.”

eleblanc@detroitnews.com

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has given a profane and conspiracy-laden speech two days before the presidential election, as his Democratic rival Kamala Harris spoke at a historically Black church in the battleground state of Michigan.

Opinion polls show the pair locked in a tight race, with Vice President Harris, 60, bolstered by strong support among women voters while former President Trump, 78, gains ground with Hispanic voters, especially men.

In remarks on Sunday that bore no resemblance to his standard speech in the campaign’s closing stretch, Trump spoke about reporters being shot and suggested he “shouldn’t have left” the White House after his 2020 loss to President Joe Biden.

The former president also resurrected old grievances about being prosecuted after trying to overturn his defeat four years ago.

Trump intensified his verbal attacks against a “grossly incompetent” national leadership and the American media, steering his Pennsylvania rally at one point onto the topic of violence against members of the press.

In a meandering 90-minute rally speech two days before Tuesday’s US presidential election, Trump noted gaps in the glass panes around him.

The former president has survived two attempted assassinations this year, including being grazed in the ear by a gunman’s bullet during a July rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

Surveying the gaps, Trump said: “To get me, somebody would have to shoot through the fake news and I don’t mind that so much.”

Unrestrained rhetoric

His rhetoric has become increasingly unrestrained in the campaign‘s final weeks.

Arizona’s top prosecutor on Friday opened an investigation after Trump suggested prominent Republican critic and former congresswoman Liz Cheney should face gunfire in combat.

He said Cheney would not be willing to support foreign wars if she had “nine barrels shooting at her”.

Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung issued a statement after the media remarks on Sunday, saying Trump was looking out for the media’s safety.

“The president’s statement about protective glass placement has nothing to do with the media being harmed or anything else. It was about threats against him that were spurred on by dangerous rhetoric from Democrats,” the statement said.

Trump spent a considerable amount of his speech attacking the news media at the rally, at one point gesturing to TV cameras and saying, “ABC, it’s ABC, fake news, CBS, ABC, NBC. These are, these are, in my opinion, in my opinion, these are seriously corrupt people.”

Harris in Michigan

Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, meanwhile, told a Michigan church congregation on Sunday that God offers America a “divine plan strong enough to heal division”.

The two candidates offered starkly different tones with the campaign almost at an end, as Harris said voters can reject “chaos, fear and hate”.

She concentrated on Michigan, beginning the day with a few hundred parishioners at Detroit’s Greater Emmanuel Institutional Church of God in Christ. It marked the fourth consecutive Sunday that Harris, who is Baptist, has spoken to a Black congregation, reflecting how critical Black voters are across multiple battleground states.

“I see faith in action in remarkable ways,” she said in remarks that quoted the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah. “I see a nation determined to turn the page on hate and division and chart a new way forward. As I travel, I see Americans from so-called red states and so-called blue states who are ready to bend the arc of history toward justice.”

She never mentioned Trump, though she’s certain to return to her more conventional partisan speech in stops later Sunday. But Harris did tell her friendly audience that “there are those who seek to deepen division, sow hate, spread fear and cause chaos.”

The election and “this moment in our nation,” she continued, “has to be about so much more than partisan politics. It must be about the good work we can do together.”

After her Detroit appearance, Harris was due to head to East Lansing, Michigan, a college town in an industrial state that is viewed as a must-win for the Democrat.

Trump was due to speak in Kinston, North Carolina, before ending his day with an evening rally in Macon, Georgia.

Of the seven US states seen as competitive, Georgia and North Carolina are the second-biggest prizes up for grabs on Tuesday, with each holding 16 of the 270 votes a candidate needs to win in the state-by-state Electoral College to secure the presidency. Pennsylvania is first with 19 electors.