How Michigan election officials are testing equipment, recruiting poll workers, and securing the count

Michigan’s Nov. 3 election is already underway. County, city, and township election commissions across the state began their mandatory public tests of voting machines in mid-October, according to the Michigan Department of State.

In-person voting opens sooner than many voters realize: the statewide early-voting window runs nine consecutive days, Saturday, Oct. 24, through Sunday, Nov. 1, with early-voting sites open at least eight hours a day.

A large share of the November count is already moving through clerks’ offices. As of 7 a.m. on Oct. 20, 789,572 Michigan voters had cast ballots, 10.7% of active registered voters, including 789,476 completed absentee ballots already returned. Voters had requested about 2.1 million absentee ballots by that date, according to the Michigan Department of State.

“Before every election, local election commissions must perform tests on their election equipment to ensure the machines are working correctly before voters cast their ballots,” said Aghogho Edevbie, Michigan Deputy Secretary of State.

Testing the machines in public

What happens at one of those tests is easier to picture than the phrase “logic and accuracy” suggests. Clerks run a set of known test ballots through each tabulator to confirm the machine is programmed and recording votes correctly, and the test must be done at least five days before statewide early voting begins.

Michigan law requires the test to be open to the public. Residents can watch the testing and talk with their local clerks about what they are seeing. The test materials are then stored securely, separate from the ballots and equipment used during early voting and on Election Day.

Who staffs the count

The people feeding those test decks and staffing the count are often neighbors. In Kalamazoo, the city needs about 260 election workers for its larger elections, assigned across 20 precincts, two voting centers, the absent-voter counting board, the receiving board, and City Hall, according to the city.

As of Oct. 20, Kalamazoo said it had recruited nearly 80 new election workers for the August and November elections and was fully staffed for Nov. 3, having trained workers, tested equipment, and sorted absentee ballots.

More than 13,000 Michigan election workers are expected to serve statewide on Nov. 3, checking voters in, directing them to their precincts, and counting absentee ballots.

Paper and post-election checks

Behind the machines sits a paper record. Michigan requires paper ballots in every election, counted by certified voting equipment; that paper record is what makes post-election hand-count verification possible.

The checks continue after the polls close. Michigan’s post-election audits are two-layered: procedural audits check that required processes were followed, and risk-limiting audits randomly select ballots to hand-count a race and compare the result against tabulator totals. Procedural audits hand-count every ballot in selected precincts for at least one contest.

A legal fight over balance

Those safeguards are also being contested in real time. The Republican National Committee, the Michigan Republican Party, and the Ingham County Republican Party filed a lawsuit Oct. 9 against Lansing election officials, alleging the city appointed substantially more Democratic than Republican inspectors for the August primary — 140 Democrats, 71 Republicans, and three Libertarians — and seeking additional Republican inspectors before Nov. 3.

How to become part of it

Michigan is actively recruiting the people who will do this work, and the job has a formal name: election inspector. The work is paid and requires training, typically three to six hours of instruction before a worker’s first election.

Election inspectors must be at least 16 years old. Those 18 and older must be registered Michigan voters; 16- and 17-year-olds may serve as Michigan residents without registering. Applicants cannot have a felony or election-crime conviction, and cannot be a candidate, an election challenger, a candidate’s immediate family member, or a member of a local board of canvassers. They must disclose a party affiliation.

For readers who want to see the safeguards in person, the public test is an open door; to vote on their own schedule, early voting runs Oct. 24–Nov. 1; and to become part of the count, the first step is the Secretary of State’s Democracy MVP Election Inspector Interest Form or a call to their local clerk.