A record number of Michigan voters cast ballot in Tuesday’s election, including a huge wave of early in-person voters and absentee voters.

Clerks across Northeast Michigan, across the state, and across the country handled everything well and deserve our thanks.

By most accounts, Tuesday’s balloting was among the smoothest elections in recent memory.

Even when Russia called in bomb threats at many polling places around the country, prompting evacuations and pauses in voting, judges moved quickly to extend voting hours to make sure every voice could have its say, and clerks and poll workers handled that extension smoothly.

Even when criminal ne’er-do-wells set fire to ballot drop boxes in the Pacific Northwest, destroying hundreds of ballots, clerks there moved quickly to verify which ballots hadn’t been counted and reached out to voters to tell them they could cast a fresh ballot.

Here in Northeast Michigan, we saw few hiccups besides Presque Isle County’s new voting results website crashing because it received too much traffic. Presque Isle County Clerk Ann Marie Main, despite losing her reelection attempt Tuesday night, kept in contact with the public and got all results sent to those who asked for them in a reasonable amount of time.

All across Northeast Michigan, lines were managed well and voters got in and out of their polling places easily, even as local municipal clerks continued to register new voters.

Everyone who wanted to vote had the chance to vote.

We express our deep appreciation to every local clerk and poll worker for making our democracy work.