Voters in multiple Michigan counties still lack absentee ballots after clerks miss mailing deadline

Filed 1h ago · Via Michigan Advance · The Buffoon Desk

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Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Guy Kawasaki · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

Several Michigan counties, including Antrim and Presque Isle, missed the state's Sept. 24 deadline to mail absentee ballots for the 2026 midterms, a deadline set in law at 40 days before the election. Other communities, like Waterford Township and Grayling, missed it by a day or two before catching up.

Clerks blame a limited pool of approved ballot printers and a tight turnaround after the August primary, which in Antrim County wrapped up only about a week before ballots needed to go to press. State officials say missing the deadline isn't unusual and typically carries no penalty as long as a county has a plan to get ballots out quickly.

One township, Hamlin in Mason County, is reprinting ballots entirely after the death of a trustee who was facing recall, pushing its mailing to Oct. 1. Election experts note Michigan's no-excuse absentee system is still relatively young compared to Western states that have run mail elections for years.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

A rule that says ‘no real penalty if you have a plan’ is the kind of rule that guarantees you'll meet a lot of people with no plan. Everybody in this story sounds exhausted and sincere, which is nice, but sincerity doesn't put a ballot in a mailbox. If the state knows the primary date makes the deadline nearly impossible, moving the primary seems like the kind of fix that shouldn't need a decade of debate.

Source: Read the original at Michigan Advance → Scored: Breaktime · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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