White Lake Official Predicts Average Primary Voter Turnout

With the Republican presidential primary days away, the White Lake Township Clerk's office is busy preparing for election night.

Ashley Amburgy, election specialist with White Lake, predicts the township will have between 23 to 28 percent voter turnout on Tuesday.

"That is an average turnout for a primary election," Amburgy said. "In the 2008 presidential primary election the turnout was 23.91 percent."

According to Amburgy, White Lake Township has issued more than 1,767 absentee ballots out of about 10,700 registered voters for this year's primary.

"In the January 15, 2008 we issued 1,676. I would say this is average," Amburgy said. "I would say the slight increase of absentee ballots is probably because we’ve had the proper amount of time to roll-out this primary. In 2008 they moved us ahead because they felt we’d be a key state and they didn’t even vote for us to have the election until the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. So really we only had about 6 weeks to conduct the election. This time around we’ve had the proper amount of time."

Absentee voter ballots are available to residents for all elections and allow voters to cast a ballot without attending the polls on Election Day. 

Absentee ballots are available only to registered voters and only if they are:

• 60 years old or older
• unable to vote without assistance at the polls
• expecting to be out of town on election day
• in jail awaiting arraignment or trial
• unable to attend the polls due to religious reasons
• appointed to work as an election inspector in a precinct outside of your precinct of residence.

Absentee ballot requests must be made in writing and should be submitted to the Township clerk. The latest an absentee ballot can be mailed out is Saturday at 2 p.m., so the written request would have to be received by then.

After receiving an absentee voter ballot, voters have until 8 p.m. on election day to complete the ballot and return it to the clerk's office.

Amburgy said absentee ballots are counted on election day, "We use an Absent Voter Counting Board (AVCB) to count our absentee ballots. They report to their assigned location and count ballots until 8 p.m."

As of Tuesday, Amburgy said the township has received received back 1,300 of the absentee ballots that have been issued.

For more information on absentee ballots, visit the Michigan Voter Information Center.