• Nearly 1.2 million voters have submitted absentee ballot applications, up from 588,909 at the same period in the 2018 midterms
• It’s the first statewide midterm election where no-reason absentee voting is an option in Michigan
• As of Tuesday, 398,756 voters have cast their ballots already

In 2018, Michigan residents approved no-reason absentee voting. Early returns this year suggest it’s here to stay.

As of Tuesday, more than 1 million voters had applied for absentee ballot applications, up from about 550,000 in the same period before the 2018 primary, according to the Secretary of State.

So far, 398,756 primary ballots have been returned, up 53 percent from 260,017 ballots that had been cast two weeks prior to the 2018 primary.

It’s a trend that appears to be playing out statewide, particularly in Democratic-leaning areas, state data shows.

In liberal Ann Arbor, more than 16,000 residents have requested absentee ballots so far, up from 5,044 at this point in 2018. Of those, 4,799 have been returned already, compared to 1,565 absentee ballot returns in the last statewide midterm primary.

Absentee applications are nearly double in Grand Rapids (18,000 from 7,500 with 7,000 returns), which went big for Democratic President Joe Biden in 2020.

Trump raised doubts about absentee ballots, and applications are increasing at slower rates in Macomb County communities like Sterling Heights that favored him. In nearby Clinton Township, which went for Biden by a whisker in 2020,...

Read Full Story: https://www.bridgemi.com/michigan-government/michigan-absentee-applications-n...