As voting continues in cities, townships, and counties all across the country, candidates are competing for votes, even as hundreds of thousands have already cast ballots. This means some new workflows for county clerks.
We’ve been checking in with some clerks this week, ahead of Election Day on November 5 — like Washtenaw County Clerk Lawrence Kestenbaum and Macomb County Clerk Tony Forlini.
While some, like Warren City Clerk Sonja Buffa, have opted to not preprocess ballots, many others have taken advantage of the option to begin that work eight days before Election Day. Kestenbaum said it allows counties to get some of the paperwork done and start verifying signatures on ballots. However, this doesn't mean that the counties can start tabulating results eight days early — they still need to wait to actually count the ballots.
Hear Lawrence Kestenbaum's and Tony Forlini's full conversations with April Baer on the Stateside podcast.
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GUESTS ON TODAY’S SHOW:
- Lawrence Kestenbaum, Washtenaw County Clerk
- Tony Forlini, Macomb County Clerk
