Tuesday, August 4th was Michigan’s primary election. With the prevalence of COVID-19, many voters relied on mail in ballots to cast their vote safely, causing some uncertainty leading up to the election about what turnout would look like.
Despite all of the uncertainty, it was reported that Michigan primary voter turnout was on track to break records. Genessee County, for example, typically sees around a 15% turnout in an August primary, and saw a 60% voter turnout this year.
With absentee ballot applications being mailed to all eligible voters, and this year being the first election year that Michigan voters could vote absentee without providing a reason, turnout was expected to change. However, how much turnout would change was still up in the air. To prepare, many precincts hired additional staff to ensure all in-person and absentee ballots could be counted efficiently, which was the right move for many counties.
Michigan’s Secretary of State, Jocelyn Benson shared “It’s really been a momentous election day and a preview of what we can expect in November. What we saw was enormously high turnout, a lot of people voting by mail, people still choosing to vote in person… things went smoothly, we had precincts staffed around the state with the 6,000 extra volunteers we recruited over the last six months.”
The August primary was for many a highly anticipated preview of what could be expected for the Presidential election in November.
To read more about the record August primary election turnout, head to The Gander.
