The deadline is one point in a multi-step process: county election offices get ballots to municipal clerks, who then send them to voters. Michigan's 40-day deadline for absentee ballots to reach voters fell on September 24. As of Tuesday, voters in Antrim and Presque Isle counties were still waiting, while other counties had ballots ready or in the mail. The delays come as election offices and printers work toward the November 3 election, Votebeat reported.
The delays involved both the handoff between county election offices and municipal clerks and a limited pool of ballot printers, Michigan Advance reported. Antrim County Clerk Annette Marcus said an earlier August primary could give clerks more time. The county finalized its primary results about a week before ballots were prepared for the printer.
Michigan's no-reason absentee voting system took effect after voters approved a constitutional amendment in 2018, a right enshrined in Article II, Section 4 of the state constitution and detailed by the Michigan Legislature, with that 2018 measure passing with 67% voter approval. Absentee voting increased sharply during the COVID-19 pandemic, per the same account, and Michigan's permanent mail ballot list now includes more than 1.9 million voters — a list the Michigan Department of State pegged at 1,924,382 registered voters ahead of the August 2026 primary, a 13.7% jump from the 1.69 million requests logged before the August 2022 primary.
Why the Calendar Leaves Little Room
After Michigan's August primary, counties have roughly 13 weeks before the November general election to certify results, resolve candidate disputes, and print and ship ballots. Michigan lawmakers introduced Senate Bill 691 to move the regular primary to May or June, but the proposal stalled amid concerns about disrupting 2026 campaign schedules, according to the Michigan Legislature. The state Senate and House have not agreed on a new date, leaving the same compressed schedule in place this cycle.
Grand Traverse County received its ballots from printers on September 23 and delivered them to municipal clerks before the deadline. Elections Director Sam Gedman described meeting the deadline as stressful and said timely delivery is a commitment to voters. Trena Somers, another local official cited in the report, said the 40-day deadline is hard to meet.
What Happens After a Missed Deadline
State officials say counties typically face no penalty for missing the 40-day deadline if they have a plan to get ballots out promptly. Antrim County began providing ballots to municipal clerks Tuesday, who will forward them to voters. In Presque Isle County, Ocqueoc Township Clerk Pamela Shaedig was expected to receive her township's ballots Wednesday, Votebeat reported.
How the Ballot Handoff Works
The reporting on these delays describes county offices supplying ballots to municipal clerks. Once blank ballots reach a city or township clerk, that clerk must immediately send a ballot to an applicant whose application signature has been verified, according to the Michigan Bureau of Elections. That state deadline is distinct from the federal 45-day transmission requirement for qualifying ballot requests from UOCAVA voters in federal elections. The Federal Voting Assistance Program describes that separate requirement; this cycle, the 45-day date was September 19.
Jennifer Morrell, CEO and co-founder of The Elections Group, said counties can reduce delays by planning for problems such as vendor overpromising or in-house inefficiencies, Votebeat reported. Western states have more experience administering elections that rely primarily on vote-by-mail; Michigan's system has only recently scaled up to roughly 2 million ballots per major election.
Other Local Ballot Changes
Separate from the late deliveries, Wayne County election officials notified Belleville, Sumpter Township and Van Buren Township on September 28 of a printing error that left candidates for the Belleville Area District Library Board off ballots, according to FOX 2 Detroit. The three communities share a multi-jurisdictional library system. Local clerks are reprinting and re-mailing corrected ballots to nearly 10,000 voters.
In Mason County, Hamlin Township is reprinting ballots after the death of a township trustee who was facing a recall. The township had been on track to meet the state deadline and planned to begin mailing corrected ballots October 1. Clerks who miss the deadline are instructed to notify voters; many have used social media posts and township websites to do so. Officials discussing the outstanding ballots cited printer delays and tight turnaround times.
Ways to Vote While Waiting
Voters waiting for a mail ballot have other ways to cast one. Under Proposal 2022-2, Michigan's constitution requires every city and township to offer at least nine consecutive days of in-person early voting for statewide and federal elections, from the second Saturday before the election through the Sunday before Election Day, according to Ballotpedia. Michigan voters approved the measure in 2022 with 60% support.
Early Voting and Mail Ballots in 2024
More than 60% of ballots in Michigan's 2024 general election were cast early or by mail: over 1.2 million voters used in-person early voting sites and over 2.2 million voted by mail, according to the Michigan Department of State.
Some communities, meanwhile, had no trouble hitting the deadline at all. Waterford Township and Grayling both mailed absentee ballots on September 25, while Farmington Hills, Commerce Township, Chocolay Township and Klacking Township had ballots available for in-person pickup by the deadline. Municipal clerks also face a tighter federal requirement under the MOVE Act and state election law to transmit ballots to military and overseas voters 45 days before the election — September 19 this cycle — a deadline highlighted by the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Mail voting is also a substantial part of how Michiganders cast ballots. In the 2024 general election, 2,232,721 voters cast absentee mail ballots, roughly 39% of all votes statewide, according to WDIV / Local 4 Detroit. During the August 2026 primary, voters returned 1,075,571 absentee ballots, 21.5% more than the 884,979 returned in August 2022. The figures illustrate the scale of mail voting as clerks work to get delayed ballots to voters before November 3.
