“It was brutal,” said Macomb Township Clerk Kristi Pozzi, a Republican.
It didn’t have to be this way, several Michigan clerks said. A few months before the Nov. 3 general election, many local election officials asked the Legislature for an extra week to start counting absentee ballots in anticipation of this very problem.
But the Legislature declined, instead passing a pre-processing bill that allowed clerks to open – but not count – ballots one day in advance.
The issue is one of several dividing Democrats and Republicans, as electors from Michigan and states nationwide are set to convene Monday for an Electoral College process to formalize Democrat Joe Biden’s victory as president-elect.