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Kent County Early Voting Update
Today 12,081 Kent County voters turned out for the first day of early voting in the November general election, nearly tripling in one day the number of voters who cast their ballots during the entire nine-day early voting period in the August primary election.
Our local clerks did a great job managing the steady stream of excited voters throughout the day, with no major issues arising.
There was, however, a paper jam that occurred at a City of Grand Rapids early voting site which required that tabulator to be serviced, so for a brief time, voters inserted their ballots into the secure auxiliary bin. This is not out of the ordinary, and we never want these minor issues to delay the voting process and inconvenience voters, so our tabulators are equipped with these bins to allow them to continue casting their ballots in a secure manner.
Only election workers have access to the auxiliary bin. After a tabulator is serviced, ballots cast into the auxiliary bin are then placed into the tabulator by two election workers: one Republican and one Democrat.
Countywide, nearly 152,000 absentee ballots have been issued, and 64% of those ballots have been returned to the clerks’ offices. When combining today’s early voting numbers with returned absentee ballots, Kent County is at just over 20% voter turnout so far for the November 5 general election.
Lisa Posthumus Lyons
Kent County Clerk/Register of Deeds
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