On Friday afternoon, approximately 26,000 unreported votes from four counties were added to Michigan’s unofficial results, changing the apparent winners in some races.
Officials from the state said they do not know of any races in Kent and Kalamazoo counties that have changed because of the extra votes. Officials from the Kent County Clerk’s Office said on Saturday that it looks like no winners have changed.
Votes, on the other hand, can change, and have changed, who seemed to win some county-level races in Calhoun and Leelanau counties.
Additionally, the votes that were not reported could lead to a recount in a state House race that was closely watched. Republicans won the seat and are now on track to take back the majority.
The unofficial results for the race for Michigan State University’s Board of Trustees showed that one of the clear winners had changed because of a mistake in Allegan County’s data, the Lansing State Journal said.
The change was helped by the votes that were not reported in Calhoun County.
It was made clear by the Michigan Department of State that the results people see on Election Night and in the days that follow are not official until they are certified.
Officials say that the bipartisan certification process is meant to find mistakes like the ones that led to these votes not being reported.
The state department said, “It is common for the canvassing process to find these kinds of problems and fix them.”
“The canvass is meant to make sure the results are correct.” So, we want to make it clear that these are not the official results until the canvass is over and the results are certified.
As of 4 p.m. Friday, 26,662 more votes were added to the state’s unofficial count. 13.795 votes came from Kent County, 6.991 votes came from Kalamazoo County, 4.602 votes came from Calhoun County, and 1,574 votes came from Leelanau County.
A software error caused the votes to not be reported in Calhoun County. In Kent, Kalamazoo, and Leelanau counties, on the other hand, the votes that were not reported were caused by human error, not machine error.
Chief deputy clerk for Kent County, Rob Macomber, said that some absentee ballots in Ada and Plainfield townships were properly counted and tabulated during the election but were not sent to the county.
The mistake was found early Wednesday morning, and the votes were added to the unofficial results for the county the next day.
“This is exactly what the canvass is for, which is why this part of the process is so very important for making sure that every vote is counted and that the results are correct,” said Posthumus Lyons, the clerk for Kent County.
“That is why we always stress that the results are not official until the canvass has finished its review and declared the election official.”
In Kalamazoo County, some ballots from Portage and Brady Township were left out of the state results that were sent by the county at first, according to the MDOS. It was not possible to get in touch with the Kalamazoo County Clerk right away.
Officials from MDOS said they were not aware of any clear winners changing because of the votes that were not reported.
Officials say that Leelanau County’s first unofficial results showed the results from test ballots for logic and accuracy instead of the ballots cast during early voting. The mistake has been fixed in the unofficial results since then.
The Leelanau County Clerk’s Office did not respond right away to a request for comment.
The Leelanau Ticker reported that unofficial results in Leelanau County showed that Democrats won a “unprecedented” 6-1 majority on the county board and also won the job of drain commissioner.
New results from the clerk’s office on Friday, however, show that Republicans are likely to hold a 4-3 majority on the board.
Battle Creek officials used two high-speed absentee ballot tabulators in Calhoun County, but the county’s system was not set up to combine the drives from the two tabulators, officials said.
When the first set of numbers was read, the system swapped them out for the second set instead of adding them together.
Even though only about 4,600 votes had been counted in Calhoun County yet, unofficial results showed that Republican Steve Frisbie beat Democratic incumbent Rep. Jim Haadsma by 19,233 votes to 17,852 votes.
On Thursday afternoon, the Associated Press said Frisbie had won the race.
He got 20,823 votes to Haadsma’s 20,765 votes, a difference of 58 votes and a score of 50.1% to 49.9%, according to the most recent results from the county clerk’s office.
That is one of four seats that Republicans won on Tuesday, giving them a 58-52 majority in the state House. This ended the Democrats’ short but historic control of both houses of the legislature and the governorship.
Gongwer said that the votes that were not reported could also change the outcome of the race for Calhoun County Board of Commissioners.
The most recent unofficial results show that Republicans are likely to win six seats on the county board and one seat against. From the first unofficial results, it was not clear if any of the winners had changed.
In the race with the fewest votes, incumbent Democrat Rochelle Hatcher lost to Republican Dominic Oo. Hatcher got 3,944 votes, while Oo got 3,986 votes, a difference of 42 votes.
This seat is for all of Springfield and parts of Battle Creek.
