With early voting now underway across Michigan for the first time ever, in-person turnout has been slow.
Berrien County Clerk Sharon Tyler tells us the south county early voting site had 95 voters as of Wednesday morning, while the north county site had 96 voters for a total of 191.
“For Saturday and Sunday and having Monday as a presidential holiday for most people, the voting turnout has been very slow, but when we went to the normal work week on Tuesday, we’ve seen a change in numbers,” Tyler said.
Tyler says the turnout has been low, but that could be because not many people know about early voting yet.
The Berrien County Clerk’s office is handling early voting for all municipalities in the county, except two. They are Benton Township and Bainbridge Township, which each decided to manage the nine days of early voting themselves.
Benton Township Clerk Carolyn Phillips told us they wanted to give residents a way to vote early without traveling far.
“It’s a little bit more work, but I don’t think it’s a big problem,” Phillips said. “I think our residents like it being here.”
Benton Township had 46 votes cast between Saturday and Tuesday. Bainbridge Township had 15. Statewide, about 18,000 early votes have been cast in person, while nearly 750,000 absentee votes have been sent in.
Tyler reminds those who do vote in the primary they’ll have to choose which party’s primary they’re voting in. You can pick a non-partisan ballot, but there won’t be anything on it other than school millage renewals if you happen to live in one of the school districts seeking one.
