Important voting deadlines to know ahead of August election

OAKLAND COUNTY — The next election will take place on Tuesday, Aug. 6, and voters should take note of a couple of deadlines before hitting the polls.

For voters looking to get their votes in early, early voting has begun and will continue through Sunday, Aug. 4.

“The more we get people to vote in other ways, it’s easier for us to handle on election day,” Ferndale City Clerk Dean Lent said.

Lent said early voting has been increasing slowly since its introduction in November 2023.

“I think the Secretary of State had a big push out to voters recently notifying them about early voting,” he said. “If folks feel more comfortable voting in person, they could always kind of avoid the long lines and go early, because (it’s) less likely there’s going to be lines at the early voting sites. And then, of course, absentee voters, people can submit their ballots back to us all the way until 8 p.m., the close of polls, on election night.”

Lent also stated that a voter can come pick up a ballot at the Clerk’s Office to vote absentee through 4 p.m. Monday, Aug. 5. People can request an absentee ballot to be mailed to them through 5 p.m. Friday, Aug. 2.

Huntington Woods City Clerk Heidi Barckholtz also wanted to stress to voters to make sure they don’t split their ballots and cross party lines when voting, as the August election is a state primary.

“In partisan races, you have to vote all Democrat or all Republican,” she said. “You can’t, like, vote for a Democratic senator and a Republican rep, and you can’t vote for the Democratic water resource commissioner and Republican sheriff. It’s a primary to decide who democratically goes on the ballot.”

Barckholtz noted that Huntington Woods already has gotten a couple of ballots returned that have been spoiled because the voters crossed party lines and invalidated the ballots.

While it’s too late for anything to be done for ballots that already have been returned to the clerk, a voter with an invalid ballot that hasn’t been returned can come in and request a new ballot up until 4 p.m. Aug. 5.

“You can also now go take your absentee ballot to the precinct, and let’s say you did spoil it. You can take it to the precinct and say, ‘I’d like to spoil my ballot and vote in person,’ as long as you have it in hand,” Barckholtz said. “If they pass the deadline on Monday, Aug. 5, and they haven’t gotten their ballot yet in the mail or they spoil it, they can go to the precinct and spoil it there, and then they can vote in person. So they can do that.”

Absentee voters can also now bring their own ballots to place in a tabulator.

“They can now go, and if they want to, in person, put it through a tabulator; they are allowed to do that at both early voting and the precinct,” she said.

The early voting site for Berkley, Huntington Woods and Pleasant Ridge is the Oak Park Community Center, located at 14300 Oak Park Blvd. The early voting site for Ferndale is the Hazel Park Community Center at 620 W. Woodward Heights Blvd.

Early voting hours are 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. every day except Thursday, Aug. 1, when it will be noon to 8 p.m.