KALAMAZOO, Mich. (WOOD) — New technology is being used to help count absentee ballots in Kalamazoo.
Despite the city’s voter turnout only being around 16%, Kalamazoo processed 6,200 absentee ballots for last week’s primary .
“That used to be the number that we would process for a presidential election,” Kalamazoo City Clerk Scott Borling said.
Borling said the increase is driven by no-reason absentee voting , which was approved in Michigan in 2018. Another factor is the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic .
“Where there was a real push for people to vote absentee, to stay safe and vote at home if they wanted,” Borling said.
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As more voters turn to absentee ballots, Borling said optimizing the work of the Absent Voter Counting Board is important. A $140,000 high-speed ballot tabulator was purchased to do just that.
“The specs on this tabulator is 280 pages a minute,” Borling said. “The tabulators we had been using in the Absent Voter Counting Board had been about 72 pages a minute.”