More than 4,600 Michiganders have already cast their votes in Tuesday’s local elections.
And not by absentee ballot.
In jurisdictions in parts of Wayne, Oakland, and other counties, voters were given an option for in-person voting up to nine days before election day. It’s part of pilot program to prepare for statewide early voting that Michigan voters approved in a 2022 constitutional amendment.
Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said the test appears to have worked well.
“We found out technology worked very smoothly,” said Benson. “We’re able to affirm as soon as someone got a ballot and tabulated it and counted their ballot that it was counted. So we’ll go into 2024 confident in security of early voting as well as its accessibility.”
The first big test of Michigan’s new early voting law will come with the state’s 2024 presidential primary.