No Early In-Person Voting in Grand Traverse County

Grand Traverse County won't have early in-person voting this November, though officials plan to have it in place early next year.

Michigan voters in November 2022 overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment that gives people the right to vote in person at early voting sites before statewide and federal elections. Communities may also choose to provide early voting for local elections.

Though several counties across the state are rolling out early voting this November for at least some precincts, Grand Traverse County Clerk Bonnie Scheele and Traverse City Clerk Benjamin Marentette decided to not jump into the fray this year. Both plan to have it in place for the presidential primary in February 2024.

“There’s a lot to pull together…and from our perspective, we really want to have everything as well laid out as possible, so when it’s rolled out it’s done very well,” Marentette tells The Ticker.

By law, early in-person voting will begin the second Saturday prior to election day and will end the Sunday before an election. Counties will handle early voting sites in a variety of ways, with consolidated locations expected to be common (meaning voters might have to travel to neighboring precincts if they’d like to vote early). Some larger precincts/municipalities will handle early voting all on their own, while others will coordinate with their county clerk's office.

In Grand Traverse County, early voting will be broken down into regions. Acme, East Bay, Peninsula, Union and Whitewater townships will vote at East Bay. Grant, Green Lake, Long Lake and Mayfield townships will vote in Green Lake.  Fife Lake and Paradise townships will vote in Paradise. Blair and Garfield townships along with the City of Traverse City will host their own.

By contrast, neighboring Leelanau County, with less than a third of Grand Traverse’s population, will hold all early voting at its governmental center.

“When we talked to (township) clerks, they kind of wanted to do their own thing instead of having it be fully county run,” Scheele says. “Some counties will have a county-run early voting site that will work for them, but ours is going to look a little bit different.”

It’s important to note that the regional sites listed above are for early in-person voting only, and voters who choose to vote on election day itself will head to their normal precincts.

Early in-person voting is the latest in a recent push to make casting a ballot easier for Michigan residents. In 2018, voters approved a measure that ensured that a person could vote by absentee without having to provide a reason for which they could not vote in person, making the absentee process much more accessible.

“So we’ll now have three different types of voting: early voting, absentee voting and election day voting,” Scheele says. “None is better than the other – they are all good options for voting, and all are safe and secure.”

Even though early voting won’t be in place in time for November, clerks hope residents will turn up and vote regardless. It’s a big election in particular for the city, with a few critical ballot proposals and a chance to completely reshape the city commission.

“The city offices that are being decided are really important,” Marentette says. “These are the folks that…set the policy and direction for this community, which is the regional hub for northern Michigan.”