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Thank you.

I'm Mike Redford, and this is the Follow Up.

Coming up on this edition of the show.

When you fill out your ballot for the midterms, how can you be sure your vote will be counted?

Are you concerned that non-American citizens are somehow finding a way to vote in our elections?

And with so many more ways for us to vote long before Election Day, are you concerned that our elections officials are able to handle it all?

Election integrity is the focus of this edition of the Follow Up.

First, you can help drive the conversation here on the show through our social media platform.

You can also engage with us anytime on DeltaPublicMedia.org.

It's also the place to go to watch any of our past shows this current season.

Our guest tonight, some familiar faces.

We have Vanessa Guerra.

She is the Saginaw County clerk and Ann Manary.

She is the director of elections for Midland County after serving as the clerk for 18 years.

So two experienced folks that have done this voting process for a long time.

So months and months of midterm election prep is coming into the home stretch.

Nine days of early voting begins in our state on Saturday before Election Day on November 3rd.

Can you guys give us a snapshot of what what it might be like as you and your team sort of ramp up for Election Day in the nine days of early voting?

Getting used to this nine days rolling voting.

Right?

Yeah, I keep describing it to my friends and family as this is my Super Bowl, so I need some time to myself right now to really focus on work.

We have a really great staff, so we have our staff staffed up for the early vote center.

Right now we're just making sure it's clean and ready to go on Saturday.

We put a lot of time into testing all of the equipment months in advance, testing the ballots, testing the machines and making sure it's also accessible for our disabled population is something we run through every time.

So those are sort of the smaller things, but important things that we're working on right now.

So Ann probably similar Midland County.

Are you getting used to getting ready for the nine days of early voting?

Because this is not something you've done for 20 years.

It sort of started what, in 2024, right?

August of 24 and then November of 24.

August of this year, 2026 and then November of 26.

Unlike Saginaw County that runs there early voting for every election.

Midland only runs it during state and federal elections.

So this will only be our fourth time out for early voting in Midland County.

Okay.

Getting ready.

This is going to be your Super Bowl.

As clerks, you guys kind of went about your job, you know, kind of mining your own business.

It's an important job with the voting.

But all of a sudden it seems like since 2020 and now they've expanded voting rights under the nine days of early voting, more absentees, a lot more to do, maybe a lot more scrutiny about integrity, integrity and access.

Do you feel like your jobs are more under a microscope?

More people out there sort of critiquing what you're doing?

And is that really fair?

Definitely.

A lot has changed in the election world, and you can see it in the data.

We're losing clerks, our local clerks across the state, and our county clerk's at a rapid rate because of that intense scrutiny.

And all of us, we're just citizens who want to serve the public.

Right.

But clerks, election specters, they're also just humans.

And so there are times when people make mistakes.

We own up to them, we explain them to people.

But because of all of the rhetoric, it's getting really hard for people to understand that we are just humans.

And that was a mistake.

We've fixed the mistake and we've moved on.

You know, to suggest that it's anything more than than a mistake is just it's hurtful to the the jobs that we do.

Right?

And.

Well, I think I agree with what Vanessa is saying.

And, you know, I keep going back to, you know, everyone wants to say, you know, 2020 elections were stolen.

But again, there are 83 county clerk's in the state of Michigan.

There were there are over 1500 township clerks in the state of Michigan.

And so to get all those people on the same page, to try to cheat and cause an election to to be overturned, it just simply isn't possible to do.

You know, you can't.

I mean, we're from different political parties across the state, whether it's a township clerk or a county clerk.

We're not we don't always agree on everything.

And to get everyone to come together, to cheat, to steal an election didn't happen.

It's never going to happen.

It's not true.

End of a story.

One thing that there's a lot of misinformation out there, a lot of social media rants.

You know, this week I think you've gotten some messaging.

I think it's from the Michigan Bureau of Elections to kind of put you on notice that that ICE may or may not be coming into the polls.

I don't know if that's misinformation or.

Yeah, I know you've heard that sort of how you handling it.

We don't know either.

That's the problem.

Right.

So we have no idea what's going to happen on Election Day.

We just try to be prepared as we can be.

So we have gotten some direction from the Bureau of Elections that has given us an outline as far as who can be at the polls on Election day and who cannot be at the polls on Election Day.

I personally have shared that information with our our sheriff, with our chief of police.

I know that the state of Michigan has shared it with the Michigan State Police.

And so we want to make sure that our voters are comfortable coming to the polls on Election Day, that they do not feel intimidated by coming to the polls on Election Day.

And that's what we're going to uphold.

So if I need to call my local sheriff, if I need to call my city, my chief of police, I'm going to do those things to make sure that our voters have a good experience when they come to the polls.

That's what it's about.

I mean, you're always going to have security and somewhat of a law enforcement present.

Do you sense there's going to be more of that because of some of the stuff that's out there?

Well, I know for a fact that that my local sheriff, my city, my chief of police will have full staff, on election day, they are always full staff at Election day, just so that they're prepared for anything that may or may not happen.

And we appreciate that very much.

I know that the state police is also full staff on Election Day.

So I think that, you know, we're taking this, this rumor seriously, but we're also, you know, not getting crazy about it.

But we want to make sure that, you know, we are prepared in the event that something were to happen because of the expanded voting rights.

More people are voting earlier.

In addition to the nine days of early voting, today we've heard that 790,000 people in Michigan so far have voted already 10 million in the US.

You guys have a sense in each of your counties, if you've seen an increase, and are you seeing more of an increase with each election and how how are you able to handle that increase?

Yeah, we are seeing an increase, but that is due in part to the changes, the constitutional amendment that created the permanent ballot list.

And so a lot of folks in 2024, some usually intentionally sometimes I just checked the box and they asked to have a ballot sent to them automatically for every election.

So because of that, we automatically are starting to see an increase in people voting by absentee.

And we're also getting the message out that with the delays in the mail, that if you are voting absentee, we also want to see an increase in those folks who drop those ballots off in person, whether it be at the drop box, the early vote center or their polling place on Election Day and back to the 9 days of early voting.

The numbers really spike from a primary to the general.

Right.

And what it's been like for you.

They did.

So in 2024.

We saw about 750 people come in August to our early vote center.

And then in November, we saw about 1000 people a day.

So just a little over 10,000 people came to our early voting location.

So we're not really sure what to expect for this election.

We did have 750 people show up for early voting in August of this year.

So we're we're just going to sit back and see what's going to happen for November.

I don't think the numbers will be as high, but if they are, we're going to be prepared for it and we'll handle it.

Same kind of numbers for you.

Yeah.

So in our August, this August primary, we saw around 900 folks in August.

But in November of 24 we also saw just under just over 10,000.

So it was about 1000 people a day.

It's a midterm election.

We typically see a lower turnout, but there are a lot of really competitive seats in Michigan right now, and a lot of it is candidates.

They drive the turnout.

And so they have a lot of ads going on TV right now.

So we'll see if they're going to actually turn people out.

Yeah, I think I've seen a few a couple of polls out just today.

There's a New York Times poll that found six out of ten Americans say they trust the accuracy of election results.

Shouldn't that be higher, don't you think?

Is that tell you we have some work to do.

Right on that, I guess.

Shame it isn't higher.

And so that's the job.

You can get more people that, feel like there's more accuracy.

Right?

We're going to go down that path.

They also found that seven out of ten Americans believe President Trump will contest the midterm election results.

If the Republicans aren't successful in keeping the House and the Senate majority.

So when you hear that, probably not surprising.

But it's kind of a shame and not to get into partisan politics, but I think the president's continually questioning election results largely baseless, that anything improper and a widespread it's really happening only fuels the election deniers.

Would you agree with that?

Just kind of get your thoughts on that?

Yeah.

I mean, it certainly makes our jobs more difficult.

So in Michigan, by law, we are partisan elected as county clerk's.

But the work that we do is nonpartisan.

If you ask any county clerk at the end of the night, we don't care who wins.

We just want to make sure that the ballots were kept in a secure manner, and we got the results out in a timely manner.

That's all that matters to us.

And the same that comes with making sure our precincts are safe.

We don't know what people what political party they affiliate when they're walking to our precincts.

We just want to ensure that they have a right if they're eligible to exercise their right to vote.

And so we are public servants.

Like I keep saying.

And so I just hope that people who hear that information take a step back, reach out to your local clerk, reach out to your county clerk.

We live in your neighborhoods.

We are your neighbors that are running these operations, and we encourage folks to become election inspectors.

That is honestly the best way to learn about the process, right?

Become election inspectors, right?

Come watch a public accuracy test.

Come to a Board of Canvassers meeting.

Learn how the process actually works.

Before you decide you're an expert and you decide whether or not the results are fair and accurate.

Come see it from the ground up.

We're happy.

Happy to show you how it works.

Right?

Go down that in terms of how to recruit more volunteers, more people to come and help you at the election.

So here's some additional opportunities.

To put some of those accusations to rest, I guess, when it comes to voting access and security, sort of your vantage point.

voting access and security, sort of your vantage point.

One has to do with going to get to my notes here.

Election results.

Security.

Technology and tools.

Secure locations and containers.

Qualified voter files, electronic poll books, whole books, voting equipment and chain of custody.

So, I guess let's start with technology and tools.

What's at your disposal when you see technology and tools?

Probably the one that we use the most is the qualified voter file.

So it's a database operated by the state.

You have to go through a really days of training in order to be granted access.

If you are a local clerk, you have to get permission from your county clerk.

So there's always more than one person who's serving as that.

Check and balance to make sure that this person is qualified to access this information.

It's a live system.

And so when people's information is updated, we can see it right away to make sure they're not trying to move from one jurisdiction to the next on Election Day, all of a sudden to prevent them from double voting.

That that is the one that we are in the most our local clerks are in the most.

And there's of course, the poll book.

And so that's another one we use on Election Day, which is not connected to the internet, to ensure that if you come to vote, you have to be in that system before we can move forward.

A lot of times people think you just get to show up and not be listed somewhere.

You are listed if you're a registered voter, and if you're not, then we're going to do some extra steps to verify if you can become registered.

Yeah, I think it came up on a forum that you guys participated in not too long ago here at Delta.

We have cases where maybe people have two residents.

You got snowbirds have a residence here in Michigan.

They go to Florida in the wintertime.

They establish residents there.

Could they get an absentee ballot in both Michigan and Florida?

And if so, how do they handle that?

So we do have a system.

It's called ERIC.

And so 30 I think it's about 30 states participate in that.

Where if Vanessa moved to Florida and she was still registered to vote here, Florida would notify Michigan that Vanessa was now in the state of Florida.

And so her registration here would be canceled.

So we're obviously trying to get the rest of the states that aren't participating currently in that program to start participating so that we can have it, you know, nationwide.

And so we can stop people from being able to jump around and be registered in more than one state.

But for most of the people in Michigan, a lot of the places they go in Florida.

And so fortunately, we have that system in place where we know if you try to register in more than one state, so the drop boxes, you have a sense as to how many you have in each year, counties, how you oversee those.

Are people using those a lot.

Do you get questions how secure they are?

Do people are people watching those 24 hours a day or their surveillance?

Okay, so run through that.

So every every jurisdiction has to have a drop box available for their voters to place their absentee ballots in our city clerk's.

We have three locations within the city that you can put your ballot in the dropbox, but you have to put them in the drop box based on where you live.

So if you live in Homer Township, you have to put your absentee ballot in Homer Township's Dropbox.

Please don't put it in the city of Midland's Dropbox, because then that creates more work for us to try to get it where it needs to go.

But they are video surveilled 24 hours a day, 45 days prior to the election.

The surveillance starts, and so they are completely locked down.

The only people who have access to it are the clerks, and they have to when they empty the dropbox, they have to secure the ballots into an approved container and seal it and take it back to their offices.

So it's literally secured from the time they open the box to the time they get it back to the office to start the process.

Okay.

And to Follow Up to that, all of those steps, you mentioned several of them.

We ensured that those steps are followed by the audit process.

So after the election is over, the county will audit.

Sometimes the state will audit and make sure that all of those little steps are mentioned about keeping a log, making sure that there are seals tracking the seals from the time they were taken from the drop box till you were entered into your office.

That's all covered in the audit, and that's done after every single election.

Okay, back to our initial graphic about what's chain of custody.

Can you explain what that is and how that works?

Yeah, that's a big part of Michigan election law.

And so everything that we do requires that we document the steps that we take.

And more than that, it requires that it's almost nearly every step has to be done by a Democrat and a Republican.

So on Election Day, when they're getting the ballots out of the machine, that has to be at least two workers of two different parties to make two of the two different major parties have to do that together.

They have to sign and attest that they witness that.

And the same is true with the election results once they're delivered.

Two different parties, and they have to sign and test and make sure that the seals that leave the polling place on election night are the seals that are arriving at the county clerk's office on election night.

Okay.

Before I get to the next graphic on the proof of voter eligibility, expand on that a little bit more.

The cost of this, it's great.

We have these expanded voter rights.

But there's a lot more for you to do.

You have to have a bigger staff, more volunteers, more scrutiny.

Are you getting are your budgets getting more filled because you're able to you've got got more money to do it.

It's coming out of our taxpayers.

Our money to do that.

So tell me about that.

Well, I mean, I do.

We have more money?

Yes.

Is it coming out of our pockets?

Absolutely.

Every single one of us in the state is paying more money for nine days of early voting.

Right.

You have to have the workers there to be able to perform all the job requirements.

You have to have the equipment to be able to perform the job.

You have to have the location, the space to be able to do it.

So yes, it is a it is expensive.

But we have to do it.

It's... it's the law.

And so, is it costing more money?

Absolutely.

Our budgets expanded because of it.

Yes.

Are we hiring more people to work?

Absolutely.

So in some ways, it is helping our local economy a little bit because we are paying people to come and work our early vote centers.

But yes, there is a definite price tag attached to that.

Yeah.

We really and I believe it's true in Midland County as well.

We worked with our locals.

We have 30 jurisdictions, which is really who nine days.

They have the authority to grant to the county, which they have done in Saginaw County.

That we all work together and we have one site, so that has helped lower our cost.

Honestly, if all 30 had to do it on their own, there are some townships that it would bankrupt if they had to do that.

And so we're really grateful for their partnerships.

Okay.

So talk about those volunteers or part time workers or just day of workers.

I assume some are getting paid.

What's the training like?

This is your opportunity to sort of recruit people and say, this is what your day is going to look like.

This is who we need.

Run through that a little bit.

Yeah.

So so in Midland, we have actually two sites.

So we have a site in the city of Midland, and we also have a satellite site in Coleman.

And so you can be an early vote worker.

You can work either full days.

I do offer part time days as well.

You do get paid for it, and you can work as many days as you're available, so you can work all nine, if that's what you, you know, your availability or if you can only work 2 or 3 days.

And that's fine too.

I work the schedule, so I try to, you know, use as many people as I possibly can.

To staff it.

All right.

So I'm going to go back to proof of voter eligibility, sort of cross-checked using your QVF qualified voter sort of cross-checked using your QVF qualified voter file for absentee voting, early voting, election day voting.

You touched on post-election results.

So how is it used for absentee voting to be.

Yep.

The QVF is used by.

So when people are issued an absentee ballot there's a number attached to that ballot.

It's on the stub.

And so if you have an absentee ballot, do not remove the stub.

When you return it to your local clerk.

They're going to look for a few things.

The first thing is your signature to make sure that it matches when the state with the increased voting, they've really been focusing on handwriting training.

And so in Saginaw County, for example, we hosted a training where we went over, you know, you're looking at loops and all of these different markers.

And I don't want to share too many of them because, you know, there are people that in the wrong hands.

But we had very intense training to make sure that we are identifying people.

I always tell people my local clerk actually denied my signature a few years ago because my handwriting was so bad.

And so I give credit to her because that's their job.

You know, they they want to make sure that this is a safe and secure process.

And so if your signature does not match, they will deny it.

They will reach out to you.

However, by law, they are required to reach out to have you come in and fix it.

But the other thing that we look at that I said is the stub making sure that when it returns that number that that your local clerk issued to you is the same number that you're returning.

We get a lot of husband and wife to accidentally mix them up.

Sure, there's an opportunity to correct that, but that's how serious they take.

It is that you can't turn in your husband's ballot or your wife's ballot.

You can only turn in the ballot that was issued to you.

In my circle of folks that I talked to, they say routinely absentee ballots are coming to their house of a son or daughter who's away at college or who hasn't worked in Michigan for a couple of years, and that could be maybe something that could be used.

They could fill it out.

But with the signature verification, you're saying that's not possible, right?

I mean, I'm saying good luck trying to trying to copy someone's signature, even if it's your child.

Right.

We've had numerous instances in Midland County where a mom has tried to send back their child's absentee ballot, and the the local clerk caught it and said, this looks a lot like, you know, mom's signature versus the kid's signature.

So and they do, they Follow Up and we reach out to the individuals and let them know that that is absolutely not allowed, and make sure that the child is the one who actually does the.

And that's one of the major strengths of Michigan's election system is that we're very decentralized.

So the local clerk who's accepting your ballot, they know their community.

So they know that Tammy has not lived here for two years, and that he probably was not the one who turned that in.

I mean, they have that level of detail and knowledge of their communities, and we rely on that.

And it's been very helpful over the course of the years.

So with the growth of of AI, you think I could not come up with a signature that could be spot on to my signature?

Oh, not a chance.

I don't think so.

Okay.

Is there anything else about AI, the impact of AI that could affect elections, or is it too early to go?

Okay.

We really can't.

Yeah, I think I think it's too early to say AI couldn't impact our elections, right?

But I know my use of AI.

I have to be really careful, because dependent upon how you frame a question to AI will depend on the results you get from them.

So if you, you know, pose it in a way that you want this to be the answer, a lot of times it'll come back with that being the answer even though it's not true.

So I mean AI, it's it's getting there, but it's not there yet.

I'm more concerned about it in the, in the messaging environment.

So people creating, you know, social media posts about voter information that look very legit.

You know, they took my county seal or something and using AI for those sorts of purposes.

So I'm hopeful that I believe the Michigan Legislature is actively working on how to better control that and its use of public information.

Okay.

You want to put to bed what we've heard about non-citizens that are voting.

Why don't you put that to bed a little bit, I guess.

Yeah, we hear about it all the time.

So, you know, the data point I always refer to is 2024.

We had about 5.7 million Michiganders that participated in that election.

15 non-citizens were found to participate.

And so I'm always quick to say, is it a perfect system?

It's not.

And I would not lie to our voters about that.

But I think that finding 15 and prosecuting those 15 people out of 5.7 million is a damn good system to be able to catch those.

And the way that we catch them is that we have election inspectors who work in our polls.

They attest they witness these things, and then we have prosecutors that actually follow through and take those people to court.

And so that is the system that we have.

I think it's a pretty good one.

And, you know, we are always open, come back to local clerks living in their community.

That's another way that we find these instances because they know who lives there.

They knew who is a citizen in their community.

And we take their we take them seriously when they share that with us.

Do you recall any incidents in your experience where this election process has been put to the test and you guys just, handled it perfectly, right?

So as far as a non-citizen, I've never been involved in a situation where we've had a non-citizen actually tried to vote in Midland County.

You know, we've had the absentee ballot thing that I already talked about with mom doing that, but we've never had a noncitizen, vote in Midland.

And I'm going to segue into people involved in elections in addition to you guys, the local county clerk's director of elections, county clerk's director of elections, we have local and county elections commissions.

We have bipartisan election inspectors.

We have challengers and poll watchers.

Can you talk about their roles?

Let's start with, I guess, the election commissions, do they certify the election?

Is that how that works?

So our Board of Canvassers, after the election, two Democrats, two Republicans, they're nominated by their county parties, and then they serve on the board of canvassers.

They certify the election.

And so the county clerk actually does not is not a certifying participant.

It's a vote that's held by those members.

We also have the county election commission, which is your county treasurer, your nonpartisan probate judge.

They review the ballots.

They review the list of workers in Saginaw County for our early vote center to make sure we have were equally staffed Democrats and Republicans.

So there's, as Ann mentioned earlier, there's so many people involved in this that it would be impossible to try and rig it one way or another because you get Democrats and Republicans who are working together in this effort.

The challengers and poll watchers, is that in that same group, sort of nonpartisan.

So.

Well, the challengers and poll watchers, typically the challengers are placed at the polls by a specific group.

It could be like the one that comes to mind is the Detroit Disability Network.

Has poll challengers this time that they've requested to come in to our county and, be there as a challenger?

Challengers and poll watchers have very different rights as far as being at the polls on Election day.

Poll watchers are just simply that they're there to to witness what's going on.

They don't interact with anyone.

Challengers only interact with the chairperson, but they can challenge a person's right to vote, under very specific circumstances.

So.

But they do have different rules.

Challengers have to be credentialed.

Poll watchers can be just basically anyone.

Well, you have a big job.

Sounds like you're ready.

I sure some things will hit you.

Blindside you a little bit.

By and large, you're ready to go.

Your teams that go so you can trust the accuracy of the election process so you can trust the accuracy of the election process and the outcome in both Midland, Saginaw County and elsewhere in Michigan.

So thanks for coming in again, guys.

Thank you.

And that's the Follow Up for this week.

But be sure to join us again next Tuesday night.

From tariffs and taxes to the high cost of gas, the economy leading up to the midterms will be the focus of the follow up next week.

Thanks for tuning in this time.

Hope to see you next week.