How does your vote actually get counted? A guide to Flint elections

FLINT, Michigan — In the wake of the election this past Tuesday, many voters are now left trying to understand what their vote actually did and how their voice affected public office. In this article, we will be breaking down how a vote is processed, how election results are finalized, and when a vote is officially accounted for.

What is a primary election?

In the United States, primary elections are the polls that our local, state, and federal governments hold to determine the most popular candidates from the political parties involved in any particular election. 

The way primary elections function varies based on where you vote. In Flint, the top two vote recipients will progress to the general election. A general election is a poll held to determine among the field of candidates which will become the elected official for a particular office in government.

How write-ins work

A write-in candidate is often understood as being a spot on the ballot where anybody can write in whoever they want to be elected for office. This is not the case at all. 

The only people who are considered for write-in options are candidates who have specifically filed with the office they are running to forgo the traditional process of appearing on the ballot. The primary reason why people choose the write-in option is the barrier to entry to landing on a ballot. 

As previously mentioned, there are a series of processes a candidate has to undergo to end up on a ballot, and if there are barriers such as not being able to pay election fees or not being able to garner enough signatures and written support, often candidates will choose the write-in option. 

In the event that there is only one person running for office in a particular election, that poll will forgo a primary election and will only have a general election to decide if the individual receives enough support to hold office.

Types of candidates

To register for election in the United States, you must contact the designated office in your area and register to be a valid candidate. For local elections, it would be your City Hall. For county elections, it would be your county office, and for state elections, it would be the state capitol. 

To register as a valid candidate, you must prove, among other things, that you live in the area that you will be elected to represent and have enough signatures from residents of the area. You can also decide if you want to run for a particular political party. 

In Flint, the vast majority of candidates aren’t registered with a particular party, and so Flint elections are often decided by the two most popular candidates without consideration for party affiliation.

How is my vote counted?

When an individual casts their ballot, each ballot is counted digitally and stored on a USB drive inside of the voting machine at a polling station. Write-in ballots are counted by hand and determined whether they are valid votes. 

As previously mentioned, if the person written in is registered with the election office, then the vote is counted; if the person is not, then the vote is disregarded because the write-in is not a viable candidate. 

Once the polls have closed, the process of counting ballots typically takes hours, as the write-in votes must all be accounted for. Voting officials will then collect the USB drives and bring them to the applicable county administration building, where the votes are counted and recorded, and then sent to Lansing by the county election office. 

Once a vote has been accounted for and verified by the county election office, it is then officially processed. Then, and only then, does your vote officially count.

What about early voting and absentee/mail in ballots?

Early voting is received when the ballot is processed at the voting station on the same USB drive as all the other ballots. The only difference is that the voter has cast their ballot earlier than the deadline. The vote will still be counted at the same time as all the other ballots cast on the given election deadline.

Mail-in ballots are only confirmed on the day of the deadline. They may be counted beforehand, but they are not opened or accounted for until the legal deadline for any given election.

All ballots are counted at the same time, regardless of how the vote was cast. That means every single ballot is treated exactly the same. Ballots received after the legally posted deadline are disregarded and not counted in the final count. 

• Local election votes are certified and counted once they’ve reached the appropriate municipality office within the county.
• State positions such as governor and treasurer are counted once they reach Lansing. 
• Federal positions such as congressional positions are counted once they’ve reached Washington, D.C.

Where can I find accurate election results?

Election results presented in news-media sources, such as the site you’re reading this on right now, are giving you secondhand information. As such, unless the site is regularly updated with the most up-to-date data, you are reading information that is limited by the medium it’s hosted on.

For the most up-to-date and accurate election results covering Genesee County and Flint elections, you can find information on the Genesee County election division website.

For state and county elections, you can find results here. For City of Flint election results, you can find them here.

For more detailed information on how primary elections work in Michigan, see this explanation by Ballotpedia.