(Source: MIRS.news, Published 08/13/2024) Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson reported that statewide voter turnout was down 25 percent in the 2024 August primary from 2020, but Ottawa County saw a 10 percent increase.  

The difference was the county board of commissioners' race, where the ultra-MAGA grassroots crew called Ottawa Impact tried unsuccessfully to retain their functional majority on the board against a coalition of traditional Republicans and some Democrats.  

The county commission was the target of Ottawa Impact (OI) in 2022. A group of far-right conservatives took the majority and spun themselves into lawsuits and overspending in the 18 months they’ve served on the board. One commissioner, Lucy Ebel, was the target of a successful recall petition. Other OI commissioners include Gretchen Cosby, Joe Moss, Kendra Wenzel, Sylvia Rhodea, Roger Belknap and Allison Miedema. 

2024 is the first year that voters have been able to react to OI’s majority on the board at the ballot box. That, coupled with Proposal 2 of 2022 implementation legislation, led to an increased response from Aug. 4, 2020, which saw 75,025 voters compared to last week’s 83,143 voters.  

Republican turnout in the primary was higher than any Ottawa County election in at least the past 10 years. Democratic turnout in Ottawa County was its lowest since 2016. 

Ottawa County Clerk Justin Roebuck said it was atypical until 2022 for all countywide races, like county commission, to be contested.  

Former Republican County Treasurer Amanda Price said this year's primary neared general election-levels of interest. She said the race for the county board had never gotten so much attention, and as long as she has lived there, the elections for that seat have been quiet and unremarkable.  

“Yard signs all over the place,” Price said. “There were so many signs and so much activity going on, and I assume a lot of money being spent as well.” 

A multi-party group of voters called Organize Ottawa (OO) called for voters to vote in the Republican section of the partisan primary ballot, no matter how they voted in the past or will vote in November. Many offices on the Democratic ticket were empty or running unopposed, but voting for the anti-OI candidate on the Republican ticket would eliminate OI from advancing to the general ballot.  

Roebuck said he saw mailers that pictured sample ballots with the Democratic column crossed out and an arrow pointing to the Republican column, encouraging voters to take advantage of Michigan’s open primaries to oust OI candidates. 

“There is an experienced Republican candidate running for every county job. Vote for these non-OI candidates in August, so no one can vote for OI in November,” the OO website reads. 

Price, who said she was against OI due to their lawsuits and spending, said the Organize Ottawa group shouldn’t be characterized as Democrats voting in the Republican primary to influence its outcome.  

“I know a lot of Republicans that were flabbergasted at what Ottawa Impact did,” she said, adding that Organize Ottawa is anti-OI more than it is pro-Democratic or pro-Republican. 

Roebuck, who specified that he tries to stay neutral due to his responsibility to count votes, said that “crossover voting,” which entails voting in the opposite primary of the party one typically aligns with, is not all that unusual.  

“There were probably coalitions of folks who don’t normally get along politically (that) seem to have been coalescing behind this movement to unseat certain commissioners,” Roebuck said. “What’s fascinating is our politics is usually not that exciting or dramatic.” 

According to the Department of State’s totals, five of the nine OI-endorsed candidates won their primary election on the 11-commissioner board, meaning an OI majority is no more. The four that lost were Belknap and Cosby, both incumbents, the recalled Ebel, and Rachel Atwood. 

Former Republican Rep. Joe Haveman said OI’s rise mirrored a similar split in the 2010s with the Tea Party. He said Republicans on the county board took too much direction from the administration and didn’t stand for much, and so a fringe of the Republican Party organized and campaigned effectively, but couldn’t govern to the same level due to inexperience. 

Haveman said in 2022, the pendulum swung far right and OI couldn’t sustain it, and the results of the 2024 August primary represent a correction to the pendulum swinging too far. 

Haveman said the chance of OI candidates threatening GOP seats will be a healthy balance between the two groups, meaning that OI’s inability to govern and the GOP’s tendency to become complacent on that board will be a strength for their opponents on the campaign trail. 

“If they become complacent and forget about their West Michigan values, Ottawa Impact will come back again. If they listen to the mistakes they made, and they listen to those four (OI) commissioners that are still there, I think the party will become united,” Haveman said.  

Beginning this year, a term on the county board of commissioners is four years, meaning that OI will have to keep its momentum through 2028 if it wants the pendulum to swing back.