Information to post and enter into QVF for presidential primary

With the Presidential Primary fast approaching, Jan. 29 is the due date to complete all of the following:

• Publish in the newspaper a notice of days and hours for voter registration at the clerk’s office.
• Post and enter into QVF the hours the clerk’s office will be open on the Saturday or Sunday (or both) immediately before the election to issue and receive AV ballots.
• Post and enter into QVF any additional locations and hours the clerk will be available to issue and receive AV ballots, if applicable.

Additionally, clerks coordinating an early voting region (for either single-municipality, municipal or county agreements) should enter the locations, days, and hours for early voting sites by Jan. 29. (This date is not in statute, but clerks are required to ensure the Bureau has the information necessary to include the locations, days, and hours of operation for each early voting site on its website. Instructions on how to enter this information in QVF will be shared in a future News Update.  

Under the recent early voting legislation, once a polling place or early voting (EV) site is approved, the appropriate clerk must send a notice specifying its location to each voter eligible to vote at that polling place or EV site. Because the Feb. 27, 2024 Presidential Primary is the first time most voters will participate in early voting, most voters (those who did not participate in the November early voting pilot) must receive the notice. The notice must be sent by Jan. 13, 2024, and must include all of the following:

• The days and hours of operation at each site for each day early voting is offered.
• All EV sites established or changed by Dec. 29 (the sixtieth day before the election) where the voter is eligible to vote.
• If any additional polling places have been established or changed for the Presidential Primary, their locations.

If a temporary change to a polling place/EV site occurs between Jan. 12 and Jan. 27 (for an EV site offering 9 days of early voting) or between Jan. 12 and Feb. 6 (for polling places), clerks must send an additional notice. If a temporary change is necessary within 20 days of the election or start of EV because the location has been damaged, destroyed, or rendered inaccessible or unusable, a notice need not be sent but the clerk must post a notice on the former polling place location/EV as well as on the local website.  Finally, in that instance the clerk must email Elections@Michigan.gov with the subject line “polling place temporary change” so that the Bureau can indicate the change on its website.

The notice of EV sites must be provided as a separate notice by mail via postcard or letter. EV site locations are not listed on regular voter identification cards. EV site notices and voter identification cards are intended to be separate mailings.

A sample EV site notice postcard is available on eLearning.

Presidential Primary Ballot Selection Form update 

As discussed in the Dec. 21 News Update, the Presidential Primary Ballot Selection Form, is available in eLearning. Although the form cannot be generated directly out of the QVF mass mailing module, BOE has created a report that will allow clerks to mass-mail the application on their own or with a vendor.

The “Presidential Primary Ballot Selection Form” report in QVF and can be found under “Absentee Voter” on the “Reports” page. This report has been updated so that you can choose a label format from the “Report Style” options dropdown, either two or three rows across on a sheet of labels. An updated guide on using this report is available in eLearning under “Quick Guide – Ballot Selection Form.”

We recommend that you print two copies of these labels, one for the outgoing mail to the voter, and one for the voter return envelope which must include prepaid postage.

The deadline for sending the form to voters on the permanent mail ballot list who had not made a political party ballot selection was Dec. 29 . If a permanent mail ballot voter has not returned their ballot selection form by Jan. 18 (40 days before the Presidential Primary), the local clerk must notify the voter by phone, email, and text message, if available, that the voter will not receive a Presidential Primary ballot unless they make a party selection. If the local clerk does not have the voter’s phone number or email address, the clerk must notify the permanent mail ballot voter by mail, and may also notify the voter by any other available method.

The Bureau strongly recommends use of an office email address or phone number for notifications such as these, rather than a clerk’s personal email address or phone number. 

Reminders

County and local election retention schedule updated

The election records retention schedule has been updated, which includes information about new types of election records that must be retained. A retention period has been added for drop box video recordings. If the footage is created, it must be retained for 30 days after the creation date. Paper drop box collection records must be retained for two years after the date of certification of the election.

The updated retention schedule does not include a requirement to forward applications to join the permanent ballot list. Because a voter’s QVF record serves as the official record of a voter’s request to be placed on the permanent ballot list, there is no need for the clerk who receives the original application to forward it to another clerk when the voter moves. Those applications are subject to the regular absentee ballot application retention, which is six years after the certification of the first election held after the application is received.

Drop box playlist

We have created a drop box playlist in eLearning, which includes the Drop Box Collection Form template, Absent Voter Drop Box Instructions, and Absent Voter Ballot Drop Box Requirements and Recommendations. The collection form should be utilized to record the inspection of drop boxes and the collection of absent voter ballots. This log can be customized. The instructions document covers requirements for the establishment, security, and use of absent voter ballot drop boxes.

Absent voter ballot early tabulation

Starting with the Feb. 27, 2024 Presidential Primary, all communities are allowed to authorize an AV counting board (AVCB) to process and tabulate Absent Voter (AV) ballots on the Monday before Election Day. Cities and townships with a population of at least 5,000, and cities and townships with a combined AVCB, may process and tabulate AV ballots on any of the 8 days before Election Day. This action to process and tabulate AV ballots is separate from tabulation of ballots at an early voting site and replaces any ballot “preprocessing” previously established in Michigan election law (see MCL 168-765a-amended).

After the local clerk has verified the signature on the envelope and that the voter hasn’t already voted at an early voting site, an absent voter ballot may be approved for tabulation. The clerk should write or stamp the date the envelope was received, and indicate that the voter’s signature has been verified and that the ballot is approved for tabulation. All ballots received during the preprocessing period must “rest” for 24 hours after receipt by the clerk. For example, if a ballot is received on a Friday, it cannot be tabulated until Saturday. Additional guidance on AV List/Ballot maintenance and preprocessing procedures and record keeping will be shared in the coming weeks.

The deadline to notify the Secretary of State that a jurisdiction intends to participate in early tabulation of absent voter ballots is Tuesday, Jan. 30. This notice should be emailed to Elections@Michigan.gov with the subject line: Early tabulation notice. No later than Feb. 9, 2024, clerks who are participating in early tabulation must post on their municipal website and in their office the dates and hours, location, and number of election inspectors who will be participating in processing and tabulation.

QVF’s Mass Ballot module will not support Presidential Primary 

Clerk’s offices should plan to use AV Scan or AV Details in QVF to assign ballots to voters for the Presidential Primary. The Mass Ballot module that allows the recording of ballot numbers in bulk cannot accommodate assigning ballot numbers by party or ballot type.