LANSING, Mich. (Michigan News Source) – In Michigan, certain locations have allowed in-person early voting for the state’s presidential primary since January 28th. This became possible due to recently enacted election laws that permit up to 29 days of early voting for both state and federal elections.

Saturday starts early voting for all Michiganders.

However, Saturday marks the day when all residents of Michigan can engage in in-person early voting. This development follows the approval of Ballot Proposal 2 in 2022, a constitutional amendment mandating clerks to offer a minimum of nine days of early voting, lasting eight hours each day, prior to state and federal elections.

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With Michigan’s presidential primary on Tuesday, February 27th, mandated early voting starts on Saturday, February 17th and goes through Sunday, February 25th. Any registered voter in Michigan has the right to vote early in-person at an early voting site for state and federal elections in which they are eligible the Michigan Department of State’s website says.

Early voting sites do not offer voter registration. However, if an early voting site is located at a clerk’s office or satellite office, voters may register to vote on site at the clerk’s office and cast a ballot at the early voting site.

Voting can be at a different place than you are used to.

While some voters will find that in-person early voting will occur in their regular voting precincts, others will need to do a little research to see if there is a consolidated location where they will need to vote at according to where they live. The information concerning early voting locations can be found at this link.

Absentee ballot requests and votes cast are up.

In addition to in-person early voting, voters have begun to vote via absentee ballot as well. According to Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, absent voter ballots that have already been cast in Michigan’s presidential primary are up 67% over 2020.

Benson’s office says that more than 600,000 voters have already cast their vote and submitted their absentee ballot to be counted. Absentee ballot requests are also reported to be up 71% over the same time in 2020.

You can vote for either political party.

When voting in the presidential primary, Michigan voters can choose either the Republican or Democratic ballot to vote on without being tied to vote for the same party or candidate in the November general election.

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Some of the candidates listed on the Michigan presidential primary ballot have already dropped out of the race and will be noted below with an asterisk.