City Clerk: Use Dropboxes to Submit Absentee Primary Ballots

For voters who have been dragging their heels to fill out absentee ballots, and think it is too late to get the ballot in the mail, the Clerk's office wants to remind you of the various drop off locations within the city. 

"There are silver drop boxes in the parking lots of City Hall and behind Comerica Bank," remarked Katrina Ritchey, Assistant Clerk for the City of Saline. The silver boxes, normally used to submit payments to the city, can also receive your absentee ballot. The dropbox behind Comerica Bank will be checked for the last time at 4 p.m. on election day, if they are placed in the dropbox after that they will not be counted. Another option exists. "Ballots can also be dropped off to the reception desk drop box inside City Hall and in the City Parking Lot dropbox as late as 8:00 P.M. on election day," says Ritchey.

One place a voter should not submit their absentee ballot is in their voting precinct. "It's not a common occurrence, but people have tried it in the past," says City Clerk Terri Royal. She suggests two options for those voters. "They can either bring their absentee ballots to City Hall, or they can spoil their absentee ballots at the precinct and be issued a new ballot to vote in person."

Spoiling a ballot is a way to nullify it: it won't be counted, but it will be collected by the poll workers so that it never gets mixed up with other ballots.

"There's a deliberate system to account for all spoiled ballots," says Royal. "That happens every election: someone accidentally fills in an incorrect bubble on their ballot, and they'd like to be issued a new one."

As with past elections, voters will fill in bubble sheets to select their preferred candidates, or to support or oppose the two ballot initiatives. However, due to Covid-19 this year, voters are welcome to bring their own pens to the polling station. "We will, of course, be providing pens for voters to use, and sanitizing them after every use," assures Ritchey. "But there's no problem with voters bringing in their own black or blue ballpoint pens to use." 

Pens of other colors will spoil the ballot. 

The statewide primary election is August 4. Polls open at 7:00 A.M. and close at 8:00 P.M. To see if you are registered to vote in the state of Michigan, visit https://mvic.sos.state.mi.us/

The city dropboxes are located at:

• City Hall Parking Lot- East End of Building behind Police Department 
• City Hall Lobby 
• Henry St Municipal Lot (behind Comerica Bank)

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