Voting Information

Elections are an opportunity to express your opinion and a time to reflect the importance of just one vote and the history of this Constitutional right. It is well documented that one vote has often guided the course of history.

• In 1765, the Virginia Assembly adopted Patrick Henry's anti-stamp resolution, an act that began the fight for independence, by just one vote.

• One electoral vote made Rutherford B. Hayes the 19th President of the United States in 1876.

• One vote sealed the deal to purchase Alaska from Russia in 1867.

• And one vote cast by U.S. Senator Edmund G. Ross saved the presidency of Andrew Johnson.

It took acts of heroism for women and African Americans to gain the right to vote. Suffragettes like Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Hull House Founder Jane Addams, and League of Women Voters Founder Carrie Chapman Catt pursued the vote from 1848 to 1920. Their tireless efforts contributed to the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution, ensuring that all women had the right to vote. Martin Luther King led 30,000 people on a march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama to demand that African Americans be allowed to vote without restrictions. The Voting Right Act was passed that same year eliminating the poll tax. One vote matters. Every vote counts.

Registering to Vote in Michigan

To register to vote in Michigan you must:

• be a citizen of the United States

• be 18 years old by the next election.

• be a legal resident of the city or township in which you are applying to vote.

• not be in jail after being convicted and sentenced.

Ways to register to vote in Michigan

• In person at your Township, City or County Clerk's office

• At a Secretary of State's office or the office of certain other state departments
  

• By mail.  A registration form can be downloaded from the Michigan voter Center and returned to your Township, City or County Clerk's office.
  

NOTE: A new registrant by mail may NOT receive an absent voter ballot for the next election unless 60 years of age or older, overseas, or handicapped. You must go to your Township or City Clerk's office to be allowed to vote by absent voter ballot in the next election.

For information on the web go to the Secretary of State's Michigan Voter Center: https://www.michigan.gov/sos

Valid reasons for requesting an absentee voter ballot:

• I expect to be absent from thecommunity in which I am registered to vote for the entire time the pollsare open on election day;

• I am physically unable to attend the polls without the assistance of another;

• I have been appointed an election precinct inspector in a precinct other than the one in which I reside;

• I am 60 years of age or older;
  

• I cannot attend the polls because I am confined to jail awaiting arraignment or trial.

Applying for an absentee voter ballot

Contact the Township or City Clerk in the place where you are registered to vote to obtain an application for your absent voter ballot.  Fill out the application and return to the Clerk.

Absentee ballot applications are also available online from the Michigan Voter Center.  Complete it and mail it in to you local clerk. 

Frequently in major elections the political parties send out absentee ballot applications.

You may also vote absentee in person at your clerk's office starting 3-4 weeks before the election, depending on when the clerk receives the ballots.  Check with your clerk for more information.