News Photo by Steve Schulwitz Kate Szydlowski, an employee in the Alpena clerk’s office, adjusts an election sign while at work on Wednesday. City residents who want to utilize early voting will need to vote at the Alpena Township office building, while absentee ballots will go to city hall.

ALPENA — Absentee ballots for the August primary election in Michigan are beginning to roll into clerks offices around Northeast Michigan and early voting will begin soon.

The number of people who vote early with absentee ballots has continued to climb, but in-person early voting totals from the February presidential primary election got off to a slow start, as few took advantage of the option.

In November 2022, Michigan voters overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment that gives voters the right to vote early and in person at early voting sites before statewide and federal elections. Communities may also choose to provide early voting for local elections.

Early voting allows a voter to cast a ballot before Election Day, in an experience similar to voting on Election Day.

During the early voting period, voters are issued a ballot and can then insert their ballot directly into a tabulator at their early voting site.

In Alpena and Alpena Township, early voting will begin on July 27 and conclude on Aug. 4.

People will be able to go in, fill out a ballot, and have it tabulated, from 8:30 a.m. until 4:30 p.m.

Residents of Alpena and Alpena Township will vote early at the township office building at 4385 U.S.-23 North.

People who have absentee ballots can also take them to the polls in person during early voting and run them through the tabulator.

After few voters utilized early voting in February, the township and city combined election resources for the early voting process, to help save money, and make sure there were enough election workers for the mandated minimum of nine days of early voting.

In Michigan, many municipalities have formed agreements to combine election resources and share polling locations.

Alpena Township Clerk Michele Palevich said that in February, early voting had a high cost for the amount of people who took advantage of it.

She said only 117 township residents voted in person early. Alpena only had 116 early voters.

Those numbers may not be a true indicator of how early voting will be received by the public, as there was little on the local ballots outside of the candidates for the presidential primary election.

Statewide, only 78,000 people cast ballots during the early voting period.

Numbers could easily surpass the local and state totals, as more people typically vote in the August primary and November’s presidential election.

“The agreement really comes down to cost, so now we will split it up,” Palevich said. “The entire process was very time-consuming for nine days. Now, we’ll use our election workers and the city’s and we’ll use the township office building because there is more room than at city hall.”

Alpena Clerk Anna Soik was unavailable for comment on Wednesday.

Rogers City will have early voting on the same dates as Alpena Township and Alpena, but they added a wrinkle to the voting horse to accommodate more people.

Rogers City Clerk/Treasurer Terri Koss said there will be staff from Rogers City, Rogers Township, Belknap Township, and Bismarck Township at city hall for most of the nine days from 8:30 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. She said that on July 30, early voting will go from noon until 8 p.m. to accommodate people who may want to vote after they get out of work. Also, Koss said that on Aug. 1, early voting will begin at 7 a.m. and wrap up at 3 p.m. to allow people to vote before they go to work.

Although the primary election isn’t until Aug. 6, Palewich and Koss said absentee applications and ballots have been sent to people who wanted them and some ballots are beginning to trickle in. She said the township currently has a permanent absentee voting list with the information of 1,500 township voters.

Koss said Rogers City has a list of about 130 people who are on the permanent list to receive ballots to vote absentee.

People can find out the location where they can vote early by using the search tool on the Michigan Department of State website.

Steve Schulwitz can be reached at 989-358-5689 or sschulwitz@thealpenanews.com. Follow him on Twitter @ss_alpenanews.com.