Township-county election agreement okayed

By Dana Casadei

The Bloomfield Township Board of Trustees unanimously agreed to authorize the partnership between the township and Oakland County’s election offices for pre-processing township absentee voter ballots in future elections.

The approved motion at the board meeting on Monday, July 14, gave Clerk Martin Brook the right to authorize the agreement, and also, terminate the agreement if that’s deemed appropriate.

Before presenting this program multiple times to the board of trustees and the election commission, the Bloomfield Township Clerk’s Office collected data on voter turnout from the 2022 gubernatorial election and 2024 presidential election. They found that there was a 35 percent decrease in in-person voter turnout across Bloomfield Township’s 18 precincts on Election Day.

In that same presidential election, almost 19 percent of total voter turnout was from early voters, a massive increase from the August primary, which only had 4.48 percent for early voters.

“We would’ve expected an increase given that 2024 was a presidential election,” said Catarina Yankey, election specialist. Yankey spoke at the board of trustees meeting on June 9, where this program was first discussed. “With this we saw that our voters really liked voting early.”

Bloomfield Township isn’t the only municipality finding a desire to vote early to be more common among its residents.

Currently, there are 18 other jurisdictions that already participate in Oakland County’s Absent Voter Counting Board (AVCB), including Birmingham, Farmington, Lathrup Village, Royal Oak Township, Southfield Township, and West Bloomfield Township.

For those jurisdictions who participate in the county’s program, absentee ballots are transferred by police escort over two transfers. The first happens on the Friday before the election, and the second at 4 p.m. the Monday before, which is when the largest majority of absentee ballots are sent in.

Since those absentee ballots are already picked up prior to Election Day, the count begins on Saturday, and they are completely done come Election Day. Results from those ballots can be posted after polls close, some as early as 8 p.m.

With those types of results, residents would know the outcome far earlier than they usually do, with the township not getting results in until 11 p.m. or later on Election Night.

Other perks of this agreement would be an estimated 15 percent decrease in how much the township spends on pre-processing absentee voter ballots each year.

While there was no discussion on this agenda item at the July 14 board meeting, joining this absentee program received positive feedback from trustees at their June 9 meeting. Trustee Neal Barnett told the board that the election commission was also impressed with this recommendation.

This would be Bloomfield Township’s first time participating in this agreement.

Treasurer Michael Schostak was not at the evening’s meeting.