UNDATED (WHTC-AM/FM) – The issue of changing the way that county clerks statewide count absentee ballots has divided the Lakeshore’s two top local election officials.
Currently in Michigan, such counting doesn’t start until after the polls close on Election Day, but there is a push to have those counts begin earlier, due in part to the passage last November of Proposal 3 that liberalized the state’s absentee balloting. Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson has been a proponent of early ballot counting ever since she took office in January, and Allegan County Clerk Bob Genetski, the former Republican state lawmaker from Saugatuck, thinks that this is just a political ploy by the Detroit area Democrat.
“She’s pushing activism, and she’s become very expensive,” he contended during a recent appearance on “WHTC Talk of the Town.” “We have to pay for election workers and others to sit in precincts on the weekend before (the election), for eight hours, for a school election that nobody shows up (for) to turn in their ballot or to be issued a new ballot. Between that and what we (would) have to pay people to show up in advance of Election Day to begin county (absentee ballots); unless she’s going to foot the bill herself – which she’s not, she wants the Legislature to pay for it – tell her no, tell her to quit with the activism and do her darn job.”
Ottawa County Clerk Justin Roebuck differs with Genetski, saying that the increased time is necessary. “This was an idea that organically came from the clerks across Michigan,” he explained during his monthly visit to “Talk of the Town” several days later. “We need some help here, and the Secretary has jumped on board and said, ‘I’ll support you on that.’
“I believe that we do need to have more time to count ballots because we’ve looked at the data, and the data says that something has to give.”
Roebuck is a Co-Chairman of the Legislative Committee with the Michigan Association of County Clerks.
Any effort to change current law on absentee ballot counting may be blocked during this current session in the Legislature by the former Secretary of State, Ruth Johnson, the first-term Republican from Holly who chairs the Senate Elections Committee.
