Alpena voters who cast absentee ballots will see most returned envelopes opened and ballots scanned before Election Day, but the city will not produce vote totals until polls close on Tuesday, Nov. 3. The pre-processing session is scheduled for 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday, Oct. 30, in the City Hall council chambers on the second floor.
Four election inspectors will handle the work, with two Democrats and two Republicans. City Clerk Anna Soik, who also serves as treasurer and finance director, posted notice of the session Oct. 6. The election commission approved it Oct. 5 under Michigan Compiled Laws Section 168.765a.
What will happen on Oct. 30
Inspectors will open returned absentee-ballot envelopes, confirm that the correct ballot was returned and run accepted ballots through a tabulator. The city will already have completed signature checks before the session begins, Soik said.
“They don’t have to check signatures because we have already done that in our office,” Soik said.
The tabulator will remain open in a suspended status rather than being closed to produce totals. Inspectors will record information in the paper pollbook on the pre-processing day, then verify those totals again when they return on Election Day. The remaining ballots will be processed after the polls close.
“In order to run totals, they would have to close the polls, but during pre-processing they don’t actually close it down. They ‘suspend’ it. The poll is still open,” Soik said.
At 4 p.m. Friday, the ballots and tabulator will be placed in a locked room until inspectors return on Election Day. Soik did not disclose the room or specific security arrangements, saying only that access is limited to her staff.
“I’m not going to give specific details on this, but it is in a locked room that only my staff has access to,” she said.
The session is open to the public. State law prohibits photography and recording inside an absent-voter counting place.
How many ballots are expected
The city had issued 1,647 absentee ballots for the November election and received 95 back when the notice was reported. Ballots were mailed beginning Oct. 1, meaning many voters had only recently received them.
For the August primary, Alpena issued 1,564 absentee ballots and received 1,183. The city’s permanent absentee list has exceeded 1,500 voters in recent elections, so the clerk’s office expects the number of returned ballots to grow substantially during the final week of October.
Soik said Alpena is using one day of the early-processing period available under state law. Cities with more than 5,000 residents may begin processing absentee ballots as early as eight days before an election, but she said the single-day session should be sufficient.
“Yes, one day is enough because we still have all day on Election Day,” she said. “The workers are able to process the majority of the ballots in an 8-hour day.”
Deadlines and ways to return a ballot
Absentee ballots that arrive after the Friday session will still be processed. Alpena voters may return ballots by mail, at the City Hall drop box or in person at the clerk’s office. To be counted, a ballot must reach the clerk by 8 p.m. on Election Day.
Early voting is a separate option for city voters who prefer to place a ballot directly into a tabulator themselves.
Voters who receive a signature-cure notice should address it as soon as possible rather than wait for the pre-processing session. State law permits a later cure, but Soik said the practical deadline is Election Night. If a signature is cured by 5 p.m. Friday, Nov. 6, the Board of Canvassers would have to reconvene to add the vote to the final totals.
“If they have a signature cure notice, it is ideal that this is rectified by 8 p.m. on Election Day, but the voter technically has until 5 p.m. on the Friday after the election to cure the signature,” she said.
Pre-processing does not change how voters mark or return absentee ballots. It simply moves envelope opening and scanning ahead of Election Day so inspectors are not handling the entire absentee-ballot stack after polls close. The city used the same one-day Friday session before the August primary.
Residents with questions can call the Alpena clerk’s office at 989-354-1720. City Hall is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays.