Michigan 2024 presidential election changes
Voting in Michigan will now have nine days of early voting. Mail-in ballots will automatically have a prepaid return postage.
Other changes include that a municipality must have one absentee ballot drop box for every 15,000 registered voters. This came from voting in proposal 2 in the 2022 Michigan election results.
Livonia, one of the higher populated cities in Michigan has added five absentee ballot drop boxes to comply with the state laws.
Michigan citizens leaving prison will now automatically be registered to vote. A similar change put in place, citizens applying for a driver’s license will automatically be registered to vote unless they choose to opt-out. Likewise, citizens reinstating their driver’s license or applying for Michigan’s government Medicaid health insurance program will be registered to vote as well.
Michigan 16- and 17-year-olds will now be able to pre-register to vote so that they are automatically registered to vote once they turn 18.
The Michigan senate has also passed a bill banning guns within 100 feet of a polling location. Another law put in place, it is now a crime to intimidate an election worker or prevent an election worker from performing their election duties.
Relating to election worker intimidation, the Plymouth Township police force discovered that a man had installed a fake camera on a pole next to a drop box for the recent Feb. 27 presidential primary. The fake camera would flash when somebody walked near the drop box. The Plymouth Township police had declared the crime voter intimidation.
Michigan currently has the third highest registered voters per capita in the USA with 77 percent of the voting-age population registered in 2022. It will be interesting to see if that number improves with these new changes. As well as the reporting on voters’ and election worker’s experience leading up to and on election day.
For any additional information on Michigan voting laws, registering, voting, absentee, mail voting, and early voting can be found at the michigan.gov website.
