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Older voters were the most likely to take advantage of Michigan’s expanded early in-person voting option in the November general election.
Nearly 1 in 3 early voters was age 60 or older, according to the Michigan Department of State, and more than half of early voters were at least 51 years old. That well outpaces the percentage of Michigan residents who are in that age group — Census data shows about 37.8% of Michiganians are in that age range.
But the state’s early voting options proved popular across other age groups as well. Nearly 60% of Michigan’s November voters cast ballots before the sun even rose on Election Day, state data show, a sign the state’s residents are embracing expanded access to different ways to vote.
This was the first general election where voters across Michigan had the opportunity to vote in person at designated polling places for at least nine days before election day, following implementation of 2022’s Proposal 2.
Jeanne Welch, now 70, voted early at Midland’s Dow Memorial Library in October. Warm weather made it easier to wait in a line that — despite moving quickly — stretched out the door. She told Votebeat that she thought voting early in person was the best way to do it.
“I wanted to get it done early, to get my vote in for my candidate,” she told Votebeat as she waited in line to check in. “I don’t need to be stuck in the November rush, when it might be snowing.”
Many younger voters also tried it out: Voters ages 18 to 30 made up more than 17.3% of all early in-person voters. The same age group makes up about 12.9% of Michigan’s population, according to 2023 Census data, a sign the choice was popular among younger voters.
One of those was Josh Burr, who is a senior in college in Grand Rapids but wanted to vote in Midland, where he lives. He went with his entire family to vote early in October at the library.
He said the opportunity was worth the relatively short wait, maybe 20 minutes.
“I wanted to get it done while I was home,” he said. “This was easy to do, so I’m here.”
In all, more than 1.2 million voters cast a ballot early and in person in the 2024 general election, out of more than 5.7 million total ballots cast, or more than 20% of voters.
Expanded access to early voting under Proposal 2 meant that voters could cast their ballot in person on the weekend no matter where they lived. But the law doesn’t specify what time of day voting has to be available, so many clerks just ran early voting alongside their standard business hours. Not surprisingly, the early option was most used by people with more flexible schedules, including retirees and younger people who might have time off in the middle of the standard work week.
More women voted early than men: Women made up 52% of the Michiganders who cast ballots that way in November. They also dominated absentee voting, accounting for nearly 57% of absentee voters in the general election.
Midland was one of the counties that had a single countywide polling place for early voters. That might have suited people who live in the city of Midland, which is near the eastern edge of the roughly 500-square-mile county. But it was more difficult for time-strapped voters who live farther away in Coleman or Jasper Township.
Expanded early voting was a lot of work for clerks around the state, who have compared it to having nine additional elections. Some, like Midland, went so far as to hire an early voting coordinator..
But Midland County Deputy Clerk John Keefer said the expansion of early voting likely helped boost turnout. Across the state, more people voted than ever before. In Midland County, he saw early voting numbers rise from maybe 900 voters across nine days in the February presidential primary to more than 2,000 in the first two days of the general election.
Part of that is certainly the fact that more people vote in general elections. But it also comes down to access and understanding, Keefer said. “We really work on getting the word out about the early vote center,” he said.
“We can’t take all the credit for it, because one party did a complete 180 and embraced early voting and the absentee ballot process,” Keefer said, in an apparent reference to the shift in Republican messaging about expanded voting options, “but … the awareness, it really helps.”
He originally expected to see voters split evenly between the three methods: absentee, early in-person, and Election Day in person. In past Midland County elections, about 60% of voters typically chose to vote in person, while 40% voted absentee.
The split in November wasn’t quite even thirds, he said, but it moved closer.
“I think in the future, (early voting) is going to become more the norm as more people learn about it,” he said. “The midterms are going to be a bellwether.”
Fewer people usually turn out in off-year and gubernatorial election years, but depending how the numbers look, Midland County could move its early voting operations to a bigger space in 2028.
What most surprised Keefer was the number of first-time voters he helped or met at the county’s early vote center.
“What was interesting is a number of them weren’t young,” he said. “When you hear first-time voters, you might automatically assume they were teenagers. But no, these were people who saw the line, had the time and decided to get it done,” he said. “We would have conversations where I said a line might not be good from their perspective, but it shows that people really cared.”
Absentee voting remained a popular early voting option, especially among older voters.
Voters age 60 and up were the most likely to vote by absentee ballot in the November election. Nearly 59% of all absentee voters were 60 and older, state data show. Only about 20% of absentee voters were 40 or younger.
Older voters especially tend to favor absentee voting because it allows them to cast their ballots on their own schedule without having to leave their homes, experts say. Michigan now allows voters to be on the absentee voter list permanently, and that list now includes a number of COVID pandemic-era absentee voters who grew to like the convenience of a ballot showing up automatically in their mailbox.
Hayley Harding is a reporter for Votebeat based in Michigan. Contact Hayley at hharding@votebeat.org.
