Follow along with the State News for live updates during the 2020 election.
The Nov. 3 election is unique in many ways. More than 100 million voters across the country voted early, including more than 3 million in Michigan — millions more waited in socially distanced lines to cast ballots in person.
The United States is heading into the “most concerning and most deadly phase” of the coronavirus pandemic, according to Deborah Birx, coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force.
Positive cases for COVID-19 are reaching all-time highs with nearly 100,000 cases reported on Oct. 31 alone. Michigan reported 22,979 cases in the past week.
The uniqueness of this election necessitates patience. While some states were able to process and count ballots ahead of time, most of Michigan only began counting votes on Election Day.
Many voters, including MSU students, were worried about voter intimidation and violence during the day, amplified by Michigan court rulings that sustained open carry of firearms at polling places after Benson issued a directive to ban it.
Aside from misinformation including suspicious robocalls and rumors that law enforcement would arrest voters for outstanding warrants, Election Day went just Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson expected — safe.
Attorney General Dana Nessel’s office received reports Tuesday morning about robocalls urging Flint and Dearborn residents to vote tomorrow, even though that is not allowed.
Another important notice from Nessel for those receiving misinformation is that law enforcement cannot arrest anyone with outstanding warrants at their polling locations.
Highlights from updates provided by the Michigan Department of State
Statewide as of Tuesday morning, 3.5 million absentee ballots have been requested. 3.1 million ballots have been returned, according to SOS Director of Communications Jake Rollow. The 89% return rate is less than the 96% return rate back in 2016.
“That’s to be expected, frankly,” Rollow said of the return rate. “We have almost three times as many ballots.”
The number of ballots returned later increased to 3.2 million as reported by Director of Media Relations Tracy Wimmer during the evening brief.
Wimmer also updated that at 2:30 p.m., there have been 12,530 same-day voter registrations. The statewide same-day registrations later increased to 18,822 as of 4:30 p.m.
The top five places in the jurisdiction breakdown are Detroit leading with almost over 1,000 registration, followed by Ann Arbor, Grand Rapids, Lansing and Kalamazoo. While the distribution in major cities seems to be pretty even, Rollow said places with more same-day registrations seem to be around college campuses, to some extent.
Before the election, MDOS recruited 30,000 election workers, placing thousands across the state in preparation for Election Day, according to Rollow. He said MDOS has about 2,000 on-call workers ready to be sent out as needed.
As of Tuesday afternoon, about 77,000 ballots have been spoiled, Wimmer said.
Reasons for spoiled ballots include printing issues, voter errors filling out ballots and making the decision to vote in person instead or changes in voting decisions. Though there is no data to track the number of ballots spoiled for specific reasons, Rollow said. Many thousand were spoiled due to a printing error before they were sent out in multiple jurisdictions.
“The voters don’t necessarily have to provide a rationale for spoiling their ballot,” Rollow said.
Rollow said the Secretary of State, or SOS, Office expects to have some results long before Friday, but they don’t know if they will have all jurisdiction results by Friday. He said again he does hope the results come much quicker.
Things are going smoothly in Detroit and Oakland County, the two largest counting boards in the states, according to Rollow.
How to interpret the results without spreading misinformation
The results below are unofficial, just like in previous elections, because the vote counts are audited by a county canvass throughout the next two weeks.
The official results are determined after the Board of State Canvassers certifies the election about 3 weeks after Election Day.
This is why when races are called on election night they announce a “projected winner.”
Ingham County is publishing unofficial results, including a separate count of absentee ballots and Election Day-casted ballots, while the State of Michigan is reporting the total combined.
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Some Michigan cities were able to process early votes casted absentee or by mail starting yesterday, but counties are only able to start counting those ballots on Election Day. Other states had a head start on counting the more than 100,000 votes in the U.S. election casted early.
Michigan’s results on election night could change as more votes are counted. It takes more time to process absentee ballots, and there are more than 3 million of them.
The results below are published by the Ingham County Clerk's Office.
Ingham County results for statewide elections
Last updated at 9:13 a.m.
115/115 precincts reporting (100.00%)
145,586 ballots cast of 214,400 registered voters (67.90%)
President/Vice President
Joe Biden / Kamala Harris (Democratic)
Total votes: 94,221
Absentee votes: 69,754
Election Day votes: 24,467
Donald Trump / Mike Pence (Republican)
Total votes: 47,640
Absentee votes: 20,849
Election Day votes: 26,791
Jo Jorgensen / Jeremy Cohen (Libertarian)
Total votes: 1,872
Absentee votes: 906
Election Day votes: 966
Don Blankenship / William Mohr (U.S. Taxpayers)
Total votes: 221
Absentee votes: 148
Election Day votes: 73
Howie Hawkins / Angela Walker (Green)
Total votes: 456
Absentee votes: 283
Election Day votes: 173
Rocky De La Fuente / Darcy Richardson (Natural Law)
Total votes: 104
Absentee votes: 58
Election Day votes: 46
U.S. Senate
Gary Peters (Democratic)
Total votes: 92,384
Absentee votes: 68,053
Election Day votes: 24,331
John James (Republican)
Total votes: 48,375
Absentee votes: 21,888
Election Day votes: 26,487
Valerie L. Willis (U.S. Taxpayers)
Total votes: 1,259
Absentee votes: 716
Election Day votes: 543
Marcia Squier (Green)
Total votes: 1,220
Absentee votes: 735
Election Day votes: 485
Doug Dern (Natural Law)
Total votes: 324
Absentee votes: 164
Election Day votes: 160
U.S. House District 8
Elissa Slotkin (Democratic)
Total votes: 96,400
Absentee votes: 70,512
Election Day votes: 25,888
Paul Junge (Republican)
Total votes: 44,020
Absentee votes: 19,726
Election Day votes: 24,294
Joe Hartman (Libertarian)
Total votes: 2,732
Absentee votes: 1,142
Election Day votes: 1,590
Michigan State University Board of Trustees
Brian Mosallam (Democratic)
Total votes: 79,612
Absentee votes: 59,521
Election Day votes: 20,091
Rema Ella Vassar (Democratic)
Total votes: 81,704
Absentee votes: 61,052
Election Day votes: 20,652
Pat O'Keefe (Republican)
Total votes: 46,734
Absentee votes: 21,981
Election Day votes: 24,753
Tonya Schuitmaker (Republican)
Total votes: 43,702
Absentee votes: 20,698
Election Day votes: 23,004
Will Tyler White (Libertarian)
Total votes: 3,571
Absentee votes: 1,727
Election Day votes: 1,844
Janet M. Sanger (U.S. Taxpayers)
Total votes: 2,319
Absentee votes: 1,274
Election Day votes: 1,045
John Paul Sanger (U.S. Taxpayers)
Total votes: 1,506
Absentee votes: 761
Election Day votes: 745
Brandon Hu (Green)
Total votes: 2,719
Absentee votes: 1,739
Election Day votes: 980
Robin Lea Laurain (Green)
Total votes: 2,982
Absentee votes: 1,983
Election Day votes: 999
Bridgette Abraham-Guzman (Natural Law)
Total votes: 1,586
Absentee votes: 888
Election Day votes: 698
State House District 69
Julie Brixie (Democratic)
Total votes: 30,079
Absentee votes: 24,023
Election Day votes: 6,056
Grace S. Norris (Republican)
Total votes: 12,648
Absentee votes: 6,706
Election Day votes: 5,942
Gene Gutierrez (Green)
Total votes: 680
Absentee votes: 382
Election Day votes: 298
