Changes to Early Voting Coming in 2026 Election Cycle
Early Voting in Ottawa County will change in 2026, offering more locations closer to home for most voters. The County Clerk’s Office made the difficult decision in January to return management of Early Voting precincts to local clerks and not renew contracts for precinct management in 2026.
In 2024, a trial collaboration between the County Clerk’s Office and local clerks established four "vote centers," allowing voters to cast ballots anywhere in the county. This Early Voting process was a huge success in many ways, as it was a year of development and growth with new procedures and training that ultimately led to over 35,000 total ballots being cast.
While successful overall, there were also some key factors leading us to conclude that Early Voting precincts work best at the local level. In the November Presidential Election, we saw significant lines at each of our polling locations. Although our voters were incredibly positive and our election workers delivered extraordinary customer service, these lines did impact overall voter turnout. Early Voting accounted for 13% of Ottawa County’s total voter turnout. Comparatively, Allegan County, whose plan was to open City and Township Clerk’s offices rather than vote centers for Early Voting, saw a 24% voter engagement. There were similar examples of this across Michigan when comparing the vote center model to the local polling site model.
Another factor in this decision was resource demand. County Clerk’s Office staff worked over 2,000 overtime hours in 2024 to accomplish the mission for Early Voting. Expanding locations and staffing to maintain management at the county level would have significantly increased the costs of our municipal contracts.
By shifting Early Voting precinct management to our experienced City and Township Clerks, who already oversee Election Day precinct operations, we know that all Ottawa County voters will be in good hands. We also recognize the need for strong election infrastructure, and remain committed to supporting local clerks in obtaining the resources they need to ensure secure and efficient elections.
The County Clerk’s Office will remain very engaged with many other aspects of the Early Voting process, including:
- Equipment programming, testing, and maintenance
- Training and recruitment of election workers
- State grant facilitation for local jurisdictions
- Additional assistance to ensure smooth operations
Our priority is providing voters with the best customer service and ensuring that every vote is cast easily and counted securely. This transition aims to improve voter experience while maintaining the highest standard of integrity and access for all.
Every January our Circuit Court Records division of the Clerk/Register of Deeds office is required to submit an annual Caseload Report to the State of Michigan. This report summarizes the volume of cases staff has received, processed and completed over the previous year. This statistical analysis allows our office to discover trends in filing and prepare for a better future for the department. In 2024, the staff of our Circuit Court Records department opened a total of 4,230 new cases, broken down as follows:
|
Domestic
|
2,107
|
|
Criminal
|
730
|
|
Family
|
902
|
|
Civil
|
491
|
Have You Seen the New County Website?
If you haven't had a chance to check out the newly redesigned Ottawa County website, you should definitely go take a look! The Ottawa County Communications Team has done an amazing job updating the website.
Now if this is your first time checking out the new miottawa.org, and you experience any issues please try:
- Deleting you old bookmarks;
- Clearing your browser history; or
- Typing in miottawa.org without the www.
You will also notice the divisions of the Clerk/Register of Deeds Office are all broken out now! You still can get to any of our divisions from the main Clerk page. But it should be easier to find what you are looking for now!
We want to hear from you!
The Clerk/Register’s office is dedicated to serve you, and it is our mission to ensure that you leave our office having had a good interaction no matter the outcome. If you had an interaction with our office recently, we'd love to get your feedback. Your comments will help us improve our service and better tell our story. Please submit your feedback here.
|
