(Source: MIRS.news, Published 02/26/2024) Is it possible a flood of Democratic voters – figuring President Joe Biden has salted away the Democratic primary – will support Nikki Haley on Tuesday to embarrass presumed Republican nominee Donald Trump?
According to Mark Grebner of Practical Political Data (PPD), the short answer is no.
Based on his review of returned absentee ballots, he's projecting around 50,000 Democrats have crossed over to vote in the Republican primary. These numbers are based on votes with extremely high Democratic scores having requested Republican ballots. He's guessing around 25,000 more will do the same on Election Day.
"It's not like 2000," said Grebner, referring to the Republican presidential primary in which Democrats made an effort to cross over to vote for U.S. Sen. John McCain to embarrass Gov. John Engler, who had pledged a "firewall" for his candidate, Texas Gov. George W. BUSH.
That year, Democrats didn't have a presidential primary, so they were free to vote in the Republican contest. This year, there is a primary with President Joe Biden on the ballot.
For Tuesday's presidential primary election, Grebner is projecting the final vote to be between 1.8 and 1.9 million voters. He said whether it's on the high end or the low end will depend on "how many Republicans are itching to support Trump while refusing to patronize the U.S. mail."
Michigan saw 2,271,110 voters participate in the 2020 presidential primary. In 2016, when both the Republican and Democratic primaries were contested, the number of votes was 2,519,264. In 2012, it was 2,187,885. In 2008, it was 1,463,567, due in large part to Barack OBAMA not participating in the very early Jan. 15 primary and only 594,398 Democrats participating in the contest.
Michigan didn't have a primary in 2004 and the 2000 primary was lightly attended as Democrats held a caucus. Participation was 1,324,732, with 96 percent of those being Republicans. Interestingly, the old Ross Perot Reform Party also had a primary. The only candidate on the ballot for the Reform Party?
Donald J. Trump.
Around 8% Of All Voters Did Early Voting
Of the more than one million Michiganders who have participated in early presidential primary voting, 78,000 used the new nine days of early in-person voting, Secretary of State (SOS) Jocelyn Benson told the press Monday.
In total, early in-person voting accounted for less than 8 percent of the total early voters, while absentee ballots accounted for 927,000, or around 92 percent.
Total turnout, which Benson called a "significant increase," was 13 percent higher than the pre-election day turnout that was seen during the 2020 presidential primary.
And absentee ballot turnout in 2020 was more than 882,000, Benson said, also marking a 45,000-voter increase in absentee voting.
Despite a relatively low percentage of that total increase coming from in-person early primary voters, Benson called the overall numbers a reflection of both voter enthusiasm and Michigan's expanded voting options.
"In 2020, Michiganders could only cast their ballot early through the mail, to a dropbox through voting at home or returning it at their clerk's office," she said. "This year, what's different is that Michiganders can cast their votes in person through early voting, and so the increase in turnout can in many ways be directly attributed to the increase of an option."
Benson added that as more citizens heard about early voting as an option, they were more likely to take advantage of it. Close to 20,000 of the 78,000 in-person votes were cast in the final weekend of early voting.
She said Sunday, the last day of early voting, saw the highest turnout, with 11,000 Michiganders participating.
"I expect in-person early voting to also become more and more popular as more citizens learn about their options and become accustomed to Michigan having several election days, rather than just one election day," Benson said.
She referenced Cook County, Illinois, where in-person early voting was instituted in 2006, and saw a 4.9 percent turnout that year. The following year, Benson said early voting turnout increased to almost 22 percent, and has remained steadily at that level.
For a presidential primary where each major party has a candidate with a commanding lead, Benson said it's a good start, helped along by local Michigan clerks spreading the word.
Canton Township Clerk Michael Siegrist, who joined Benson in Detroit, talked about the technical implementation of early voting, which included a live early voting poll book that tracks voter status in real time, which he said was a critical tool for Canton Township's two early voting sites.
Siegrist added that voter education was the township's number one mission, which they carried out via a social media campaign, advertising in the township's community center brochure and mailing notices to voters with early voting site locations, dates and times.
"I can tell you, I've never seen this level of excitement in voters as they go into the early voting site and cast their ballot for the first time," he said.
Benson said the city of Detroit saw the highest number of voters participating in early in-person and absentee voting, while Ann Arbor had the greatest percentage of citizens voting early.
Siegrist said in Canton, the township will now track when voters come to the polls to vote early, with the intention of creating a voter schedule "so that we can prepare for November, to make sure that when we are offering early voting is when the citizens want to early vote."
When asked about the estimated cost, Benson said those numbers won't be available until clerks report out their specific expenditures for this period, which will allow a clear estimate for August and November funding allocations.
She said this first year of early voting will likely be more expensive, due to voter education costs, training and setup expenses, and will likely diminish over time.
In Canton Township, Siegrist said he asked that roughly $30,000 be set aside for voter education this year, which he called an investment.
But in the long term, "It's extremely premature to know what the cost is right now for early voting."
