Step 1: Request your ballot. You can do this online here if you have a valid Michigan driver’s license or state ID. If not, fill out an application for an absentee ballot, sign it using your official signature, and submit it to your city/township clerk. You can mail the application, take a photo of it and email it, or drop it off in person. Make sure your signature is visible if you email it.

*****If you checked the box on the absentee ballot application for the Primary election to receive a ballot for both the August primary and the November general election, then you will not need to fill out another application for November. Your ballot should be sent to you automatically starting September 29.*** 

Step 2: Vote your ballot. Look for your ballot to arrive in the mail. Vote your ballot, place it in the envelope provided, and sign the outside of the envelope.

Step 3: Submit your ballot. Your completed absentee ballot must be received by your city/township clerk by 8 pm on Election Day in order to be counted. Since the mail can take some time, you should drop your ballot in the mail at least 2 weeks before the election you wish to vote in.

You can download the absentee ballot application here or call your city/township clerk and ask to have an application mailed to you.

Yes. Please click here for further information.

You can track the status of your absentee ballot application and your ballot at michigan.gov/vote. Enter your information to see when:

• Your application for your absentee ballot was received by your city/township clerk;
• Your ballot was mailed to you; and, 
• Your completed ballot was received by your city/township clerk.

Absentee ballots are tabulated publicly just as ballots voted in polling places are, and volunteer observers appointed by both political parties are permitted in absentee counting rooms to make sure all proper procedures are followed. The Michigan Democratic Party actively recruits volunteer lawyers and other trained observers to work in absentee counting rooms across the state to monitor the counting process to verify that all valid ballots are counted.    

To ensure that your absentee ballot is counted, remember to sign the outside of the return envelope with your official signature. And make sure that your ballot is received by your city/township clerk by 8 pm on Election Day. The #1 reason why absentee ballots are not counted is that they arrive too late.

To automatically receive an application for an absentee ballot before each election, you can sign up for your city/township clerk’s permanent absentee application list. You’ll still have to complete and return the application each time in order to receive your ballot for that election, but the application will automatically be sent to you.

You can find out if your city/township has a permanent absentee application list by visiting michigan.gov/vote, and entering your information.

Ways to sign up for the permanent absentee application list:

• Online at michigan.gov/vote
• Check the “Future Elections” box on the Absent Voter Ballot Application.
• Call or email your clerk and request to be added to the list.
• Sign up on your clerk’s website (if available).
• Fill out this request form and mail it or deliver it to your clerk.

Some city/township clerks do not maintain a permanent absentee application list. If you request to be on the list and your clerk doesn’t maintain one, the clerk is required to notify you of that fact.

Call or visit your city/township clerk’s office as soon as possible to cancel your first absentee ballot and request a new one.

Or you can go to your polling place on Election Day, complete a simple form saying you never received your absentee ballot, and vote.

Visit your city/township clerk’s office as soon as possible to cancel your first absentee ballot and request a new one. If you still have the absentee ballot, because you made a mistake or it was only partially destroyed, take it with you. 

Or go to your polling place on Election Day, fill out a simple form and vote. If you have the absentee ballot, because you made a mistake or it was only partially destroyed, take it with you and surrender it.

Simply take your absentee ballot to your polling place on Election Day, surrender it, and vote at the polling place.

No. If you haven’t returned your absentee ballot before Election Day, take it to your city/township clerk’s office by 8 pm on Election Day.

Only a member of your immediate family can mail or deliver a ballot to the clerk for you. “Immediate family member” includes mother, father, sister, brother, daughter, son, father-in-law, mother-in-law, brother-in-law, sister-in-law, grandparent, grandchild, or a person residing in your household.

If you need assistance returning a ballot, call your local clerk and ask them to pick up your ballot. The clerk is required to do this, or send an assistant to do it, if you or a family or household member can’t return the ballot, and the clerk doesn’t need to leave the city, township or village where you’re registered in order to pick it up.

Find your clerk’s contact information at https://mvic.sos.state.mi.us/Voter/Index/#yourclerk

If you cannot attend the polls because of personal disablement, or a family death or illness which will require you to leave your community for the entire time the polls are open on Election Day, you can request an emergency absentee ballot.

You can authorize someone to deliver your absentee ballot application to the clerk and to pick up and deliver the ballot for you. The authorization to pick up and deliver the ballot must be in writing and you must sign it.

It’s a way of voting for all of the nominees of one political party by filling in a single oval or box on the ballot, instead of filling in each individual oval or box for each nominee.

No. A straight party vote applies only to the Partisan Section of your ballot and only counts for candidates who were nominated by their party during the Primary Election in August.

Write-in candidates are not covered by a straight ticket vote. To vote for a write-in for a particular office, fill in the oval or box next to the write-in option for that office and write the candidate’s name in the space provided.

You must mark your ballot separately to vote in the Nonpartisan Section (for judges and school board) and in the Proposals Section:

• The Michigan Democratic Party nominated Justice Richard Bernstein and Kyra Harris Bolden for the Michigan Supreme Court. 
• The Michigan Democratic Party endorsed Proposal 2 (Promote the Vote 2022) and Proposal 3 (Reproductive Freedom for All) and recommends a “Yes” vote on both. 

Look for the “Straight Party Ticket” heading at the top of the far-left column of your ballot. If you fill in the oval or box next to “Democratic Party,” you cast a vote for all of the Democratic nominees in the Partisan Section of the ballot at once and don’t need to do anything else in the Partisan Section to vote for all of the Democratic nominees.

Yes. If you vote straight party Democratic AND fill in the ovals or boxes for some or all of the individual Democratic nominees, your vote will count for all of the Democratic nominees in the Partisan Section, in the same way as it would if you just mark the straight party Democratic.

Yes. You can vote straight party Democratic and vote for one or more individual candidates of another party. Your straight party vote will count for all of the Democratic nominees other than the offices where you vote for a candidate of the other party. Your vote(s) for the individual candidate(s) of the other party will also count. This is called a “split ticket.”