News Photo by Steve Schulwitz Carolyn Szatkowski, left, and Lois Trudeau patiently wait for people to come in to vote at City Hall in Alpena on Tuesday. So far, the number of people utilizing Michigan’s new early voting system is low.

ALPENA — Early voting for the presidential primary election on Feb. 27 has gotten off to a slow start in Northeast Michigan.

After voters overwhelmingly approved early voting by passing a statewide proposal in 2022, few people in the Alpena area cast ballots when early voting began on Saturday.

Early voting is the opportunity to cast a ballot in person before Election Day. For voters, the early voting experience will be similar to the experience of voting at a polling place on Election Day and will include the act of inserting the voter’s completed ballot into a tabulator.

Some local clerks say they worry about the upcoming costs associated with early voting in future elections if more people don’t utilize it.

In Alpena Township, from Saturday until the end of the day on Monday, 18 people cast ballots and fed them into the tabulator. In Alpena, the numbers weren’t much better, as a total of 23 people made their selection of which presidential candidate they favored.

The ballot also includes a school property tax renewal request for Alpena Public Schools that would extend the current non-homestead tax.

Alpena Township Clerk Michele Palevich said the township didn’t know what the participation rate would be for early voting, so she had to staff the poll as if there would be a high turnout. She said that ended up not being the case. She said election employees assisted eight voters on Saturday, six on Sunday, and four on Monday.

Palevich said that, in this election, the township is not responsible for the additional cost of early voting because it will be reimbursed by the state, but, in upcoming elections, the township will have to foot the bill.

“As this was the first time for early voting, we didn’t know how high or low of a voter turnout we’d have,” she said. “We needed to plan in case of a large turnout so we have four election inspectors working each day of the nine days of early voting. Currently, I have not calculated the cost per voter but with such a low turnout it will be high.”

Alpena Clerk Anna Soik said the new early voting law requires municipalities to have a minimum of three election employees working at one time. She said the low turnout so far wasn’t completely unexpected because typically voter turnout during the presidential primary is lower than the regular primary and presidential elections that follow shortly after. Soik said she is still hopeful more people will utilize early voting when they learn more about it and see how convenient it is, especially people who don’t like being around crowds.

“It might take some time to catch on, but for people who don’t like the rustle and bustle of election day, they might like this,” Soik said. “It’s a quiet place for them to vote.”

In less populated areas of Northeast Michigan, smaller townships and municipalities consolidated surrounding precincts into one location for early voting. In Alpena County, Sanborn, Ossineke, Wilson, Wellington, Green, Long Rapids, and Maple Ridge townships banded together to host early voting in one centralized location, the Wilson Township Fire Hall.

Angie Carsten, who is the Sanborn Township Clerk and coordinator of the partnerships between the municipalities said combined, from Saturday through Monday, only four voters cast ballots early.

She said she believes people weren’t sure where to vote during early voting, but added that once election day arrives, people who intend to vote then will need to vote at their normal polling location. She said the state, local government, and the media need to do a better job of promoting early voting and providing the public with the information about it that they need.

“This has turned out exactly like I expected it would,” she said. “The state didn’t do enough to trial us, because there are a lot of new and extra steps for security. They were so busy putting the process together, they also didn’t do a good job of educating voters.”

Rogers City, Rogers Township, Bismarck Township, and Belknap Township consolidated their election resources to work together for early voting. Although the population is smaller than the municipalities in Alpena County, the number of early voters was higher, but still not strong.

In total, the combination of Rogers City and the township involved had 40 people vote. On Saturday there were 11 and another five on Sunday. On Monday, numbers took a significant jump up to 24 people who cast ballots.

The designated early voting location for those residents is at City Hall in Rogers City.

Michigan’s constitution requires cities and townships to offer early voting in each statewide and federal election for at least nine consecutive days, beginning on the second Saturday before the election and ending on the Sunday before the election, for at least eight hours each day. The first election in which early voting is constitutionally required will be the 2024 Presidential Primary election, but some communities piloted early voting in 2023.

For more information please contact your local clerk’s office.