By Jessica Mathews / news@whmi.com


The Howell City Council met virtually Monday night and received a General Election report from Clerk Jane Cartwright.

Council and staff commended Cartwright, who was said to have exhibited a heroic amount of patience this election season that involved incredible voter participation. It was stated the operation is a “well-oiled machine” with very confident staff and volunteers, as well as a lot of new election workers that did a really good job. Cartwright commented that it took a whole team of people to pull it off and the City had its highest voter turnout ever with an average of 70.5%. She noted two precincts had 73% and 74% turnout.
Cartwright stated one volunteer worker has been telling people about how well run and secure the election was - which was nice to hear and needed because there’s a lot of mistrust out there.

Cartwright said there were more absentee ballots than in-person voting but that was expected. The total number of absentee ballots that were turned in and processed was 3,205. In-person stood at 2,266 registered voters. Cartwright noted 36 people took advantage of a new law that allows for same day voter registration – on top of multiple people in the two weeks leading up to Election Day.
It was stated that only two ballots were delivered by the U.S Postal Service after the Election Day deadline that couldn’t be counted. Cartwright said in those circumstances, the ballots are marked as “rejected –arrival after the deadline” and that status can be viewed on the state’s website.

Cartwright's full memo to Council is included in the meeting packet. That link is provided.