Size, money and party shape how Michigan officials rate nine-day early voting

Every figure in the brief is an official's rating of how a reform affected election administration. The open-ended answers say what sits behind the negative ratings: election-worker payroll, equipment expenses, low early-voting turnout and broader budget strain ^[13]. One local official, not named in the release, said: "The nine-day early voting does not make sense for townships with small populations. It is very expensive to have poll workers available for nine days when we get fewer than 10 people voting early. One day on a weekend would make more sense for small townships." ^[12]

The survey tries to be a census. The Center for Local, State, and Urban Policy at the University of Michigan's Ford School of Public Policy runs it with Michigan's local government associations, and it goes to all 1,856 general-purpose local governments in the state ^[8]. The spring 2026 wave ran from March 30 to June 5 and drew 1,328 responses, a 72% rate ^[9]. That left 528 governments unheard from ^[17]. The election findings use only cities and townships, because those are the governments that conduct elections ^[10].

The size result is the easiest to quote and the hardest to read. The brief gives a positive share for the largest jurisdictions and a negative share for towns of 1,500 to 5,000 residents ^[1]. Those figures sit on opposite sides of the scale, so one cannot be set against the other. The small-town negative share is 2 points above the statewide figure ^[16].

Budget stress is a cleaner comparison, because both groups are scored on the negative side. High-stress communities run 11 to 12 points more negative than places with low or medium stress ^[18]. The partisan gap is wider. Republican and Democratic officials differ by 32 points ^[19], and the release reports those figures after accounting for population size and jurisdiction type ^[5]. If officials in small or stressed places differ in party from those in large ones, part of the size and money gaps could be political.

Stephanie Leiser, who co-wrote the brief and directs the center, tied clerks' support for the rule to local budgets. "We're seeing that while many local clerks generally support the idea of making it easier for their residents to vote, the fiscal reality is that nine days of early voting can be a pretty significant strain on resources, especially if your community is already struggling. Dollars that pay for nine days of poll workers can't be spent to fill potholes," she said ^[14].

The release does not say whether the state reimburses any of that payroll. The survey covers reforms that voters wrote into the state constitution through Proposal 3 in 2018 and Proposal 2 in 2022 ^[15], and officials' views of one of them have already moved. Negative assessments of same-day registration have fallen since 2020. This year 33% of officials rate its impact positive and 26% negative ^[7]. "We're still in the first few election cycles of conducting nine days of early voting in Michigan, and many of our local governments are encountering challenges, both the costs and the difficulties of staffing it," said Debra Horner, who also co-wrote the brief and is a senior program manager on the Michigan Public Policy Survey ^[11].