• Home
  • Independent Voter News
  • Quizzes
  • Election Dissection
  • Sections
  • Events
  • Directory
  • About Us
  • Glossary
  • Opinion
  • Campaign Finance
  • Redistricting
  • Civic Ed
  • Voting
  • Fact Check
  • News
  • Analysis
  • Subscriptions
  • Log in
Leveraging Our Differences
  • news & opinion
    • Big Picture
      • Civic Ed
      • Ethics
      • Leadership
      • Leveraging big ideas
      • Media
    • Business & Democracy
      • Corporate Responsibility
      • Impact Investment
      • Innovation & Incubation
      • Small Businesses
      • Stakeholder Capitalism
    • Elections
      • Campaign Finance
      • Independent Voter News
      • Redistricting
      • Voting
    • Government
      • Balance of Power
      • Budgeting
      • Congress
      • Judicial
      • Local
      • State
      • White House
    • Justice
      • Accountability
      • Anti-corruption
      • Budget equity
    • Columns
      • Beyond Right and Left
      • Civic Soul
      • Congress at a Crossroads
      • Cross-Partisan Visions
      • Democracy Pie
      • Our Freedom
  • Pop Culture
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
  • events
  • About
      • Mission
      • Advisory Board
      • Staff
      • Contact Us
Sign Up
  1. Home>
  2. Voting>
  3. absentee voting>

Invitations prompt a surge in absentee ballots for Michigan primary

Our Staff
July 02, 2020
Michigan
filo/Getty Images

Michigan's primary is a month away but more than 1.3 million people have already asked for mail-in ballots, three-and-a-half times the number four years ago. A million Michiganders already have their ballots in hand.

The numbers were detailed Wednesday by the office of Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson. They suggest her decision to send absentee ballot applications to all registered voters statewide will assure solid turnout in the nominating contests, no matter the intensity of the coronavirus pandemic in August.

That could increase the likelihood everyone in the state is invited to vote remotely again come November, producing even more significant participation in the presidential election — when Michigan's 16 electoral votes are central to the strategies of both candidates.


Benson announced in May that she would pay for county clerks to send mail-in request forms to all 7.7 million of the state's voters, hoping to minimize crowding at polling places in August because of Covid-19.

That prompted President Trump not only to lambaste her on Twitter but also to threaten to withhold federal funding to the state, something he's largely powerless to do by himself. The outburst was one of his first prominent tirades against voting-by-mail, which he maintains without any credible evidence will fuel election cheating.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

He also alleges without evidence the practice boosts the blue vote over the red vote, although it's true that Democrats believe an aggressive effort to persuade people in Detroit and other urban centers to vote by mail will assure Joe Biden defeats Trump, who carried the state by just 10,704 votes last time.

Absentee voting participation shot up in Michigan after the state's voters approved a ballot measure two years ago allowing absentee voting for no reason. A quarter of all votes were cast that way in 2018, in line with the national share.

Claim: Michigan illegally sent absentee ballots to voters. Fact check: False

Chiara Vercellone, Medill School

Michigan sends absentee ballot applications to 7.7 million people ahead of Primaries and the General Election. This… https://t.co/O2Y8dXRvmd
— Donald J. Trump (@Donald J. Trump) 1589998381.0

Michigan did not send ballots to registered voters like President Trump said. Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, who has encouraged all voters to vote by mail for all elections held this year, announced Tuesday all 7.7 million registered voters would receive applications to vote by mail in the August primary and November general elections.

Responding to the president, Benson noted that her office was sending applications, not ballots, "just like my GOP colleagues in Iowa, Georgia, Nebraska and West Virginia." The applications sent out, Benson said, ensure "that no Michigander has to choose between their health and their right to vote."

In a similar tweet, Trump also accused the state of Nevada's election officials of sending mail-in ballots to voters. Earlier this month, Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske, a Republican, announced registered voters would start receiving mailed absentee ballots to vote for the primary, held predominantly by mail.

From Your Site Articles
  • Fact check: Mich. isn't illegally sending absentee ballots - The Fulcrum ›
  • Dems win changes in Michigan's handling of absentee votes - The ... ›
  • Michigan plans to send vote-by-mail applications to everyone - The ... ›
  • Michigan court keeps in place deadline for absentee ballots - The Fulcrum ›
Related Articles Around the Web
  • Trump's False Tweet About Michigan Absentee Ballot Applications ... ›
  • All Michigan voters to get absentee ballot applications in mail ›
  • Trump supporters burn Michigan absentee ballot applications ›
  • SOS - Absentee voting allows you to vote by mail ›
absentee voting

Want to write
for The Fulcrum?

If you have something to say about ways to protect or repair our American democracy, we want to hear from you.

Submit
Get some Leverage Sign up for The Fulcrum Newsletter
Follow
Contributors

The Constitution was intended to expand freedoms, not restrict them

Beau Breslin

Risks and rewards in a polarized nation: Businesses face tough choices after Roe v. Wade ruling

Richard Davies

The economic blame game, part 1: Blame your opponents

David L. Nevins

How a college freshman led the effort to honor titans of democracy reform

Jeremy Garson

Our poisonous age of absolutism

Jay Paterno

Re-imagining Title IX: An opportunity to flex our civic muscles

Lisa Kay Solomon
latest News

Busy day ahead with primaries or runoffs in seven states

Richard Perrins
Reya Kumar
Kristin Shiuey
15h

The state of voting: June 27, 2022

Our Staff
15h

Video: Faces of democracy

Our Staff
21h

How the anti-abortion movement shaped campaign finance law and paved the way for Trump

Amanda Becker, The 19th
24 June

Podcast: Journalist and political junkie Ken Rudin

Our Staff
24 June

A study in contrasts: Low-turnout runoffs vs. Alaska’s top-four, all-mail primary

David Meyers
23 June
Videos

Video: Memorial Day 2022

Our Staff

Video: Helping loved ones divided by politics

Our Staff

Video: What happened in Virginia?

Our Staff

Video: Infrastructure past, present, and future

Our Staff

Video: Beyond the headlines SCOTUS 2021 - 2022

Our Staff

Video: Should we even have a debt limit

Our Staff
Podcasts

Podcast: Did economists move the Democrats to the right?

Our Staff
02 May

Podcast: The future of depolarization

Our Staff
11 February

Podcast: Sore losers are bad for democracy

Our Staff
20 January

Deconstructed Podcast from IVN

Our Staff
08 November 2021
Recommended
Founding Father John Dickinson

The Constitution was intended to expand freedoms, not restrict them

Judicial
Illinois Republican gubernatorial candidate Darren Bailey

Busy day ahead with primaries or runoffs in seven states

State of voting - election law changes

The state of voting: June 27, 2022

Voting
Dick’s Sporting Goods CEO Lauren Hobart

Risks and rewards in a polarized nation: Businesses face tough choices after Roe v. Wade ruling

Corporate Responsibility
Video: Faces of democracy

Video: Faces of democracy

Leadership
Federal Reserve Jerome Powell

The economic blame game, part 1: Blame your opponents

Leveraging big ideas