More than 23,000 absentee ballots head to Lansing mailboxes Friday, Sept. 25, marking the start of the city's ballot distribution for the Nov. 3 general election.
Lansing City Clerk Chris Swope announced the mailing after days of preparation by election staff and volunteers at the city elections office, according to WLNS. The batch primarily goes to voters on the city's Permanent Mail Ballot list, who automatically receive a ballot for every election as long as they remain registered in Michigan.
Swope said in a statement that voters on the permanent list will never miss an election because they will be mailed a ballot every cycle. They can return it by mail, drop it off or bring it to their precinct or an early voting site.
Every ballot includes prepaid postage.
Voters who prefer not to use the mail can use 24-hour secure drop boxes, which the clerk's office says are located within 1.5 miles of any Lansing resident. Completed ballots must arrive by 8 p.m. on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 3.
Early in-person voting
Voters who want to cast a ballot in person before Election Day can do so starting Saturday, Oct. 24, at two locations:
- Lansing Elections Office, 701 W. Jolly Rd.
- Foster Community Center, 200 N. Foster Ave.
Hours of operation for the early voting sites have not been announced.
Mail voting expected to be heavy
Swope estimated in a Sept. 15 WILX interview that 40% to 60% of Lansing ballots in the gubernatorial general election will arrive by mail or drop box. At that point his office had already processed more than 600 paper voter registration forms, a figure he called remarkably high for a non-presidential midterm.
"People are applying for absentee ballots, both online and mailing forms in … So people are, I think, geared up to vote in this election," Swope told WILX on Sept. 15.
The Nov. 3 ballot includes races for governor and U.S. Senate, along with local millage proposals, according to WILX. Michigan voters gained no-reason absentee voting through a 2018 constitutional amendment, and in the 2024 general election about 2.2 million Michiganders voted by mail, according to the Lansing State Journal.
Voters can update their registration online at michigan.gov/vote until two weeks before the election. After that, updates must be made in person at the local clerk's office.
