‘Presidential Level Turnout’ Expected in East Lansing as Absentee Ballots are Mailed for Midterms

East Lansing election officials expect a surge of ballots as residents prepare to vote on a host of offices and issues in the Nov. 3 general election, City Clerk Emily Gordon told East Lansing Info.

About 8,000 ballots were cast in East Lansing in the August primary election, up from just over 5,000 ballots in the 2024 primary election. 

Voter turnout across battleground state Michigan has been climbing in recent contentious election years with the 2024 presidential election setting a new record for statewide voter turnout at more than 5.7 million votes.

“We are prepping for presidential level turnouts,” Gordon said. “We’re prepping for a very high level turnout … each election kind of has just gained traction … our turnouts in August across the state were very high so we know that November is going to be a high level turnout too.”

Absentee ballots were mailed out to voters Wednesday, Gordon said, highlighting that City Hall has a brand new ballot drop box in the north parking lot. The city now has five ballot drop boxes, with others located inside City Hall, at the Department of Public Works building, at the public library and at the MSU-CATA station at 592 N. Shaw Lane.

While Election Day lines can be long in East Lansing, challenges are mostly confined to the clerk’s office and Election Day Voting Centers, where voters can register and vote on the day of the election. Because many Michigan State University students move frequently or are voting for the first time, they often need to register on Election Day. Lines can be avoided by making sure your voter registration is up to date before Election Day or by voting early.

For residents who vote on Election Day, the city recently updated its precinct boundaries, reducing the number of precincts from 17 to 13. This means residents who last voted at the November 2025 City Council election may be voting at a different location this cycle. Gordon encouraged residents with questions about where they should vote on Election Day to reach out to her office. Additionally, residents can find their polling place online.

Voters will be choosing a new trifecta of the highest state offices in Michigan: Governor, Secretary of State and Attorney General. All three have been held by Democratic women for the last eight years whose term limits have been reached. The races are poised to determine political party control for the state for the next four years.

There’s national attention right now on Michigan’s open U.S. Senate seat, as Republican Mike Rogers and Democrat Abdul El-Sayed are squaring off in a tense race to succeed retiring Democrat Gary Peters. 

Another closely watched race in East Lansing is the battle for mid-Michigan’s 7th Congressional District which is made up all of Clinton, Ingham, Livingston, and Shiawassee counties and includes parts of Eaton, Genesee and Oakland counties. In this election, U.S. Rep. Tom Barrett, (R-Charlotte) is fending off a partisan flip from Democratic challenger William Lawrence as Republicans hold a razor thin majority in congress.

East Lansing voters will also be deciding their representation in the state legislature, where every seat is up for grabs and Democrats currently hold a slim majority in the state Senate and Republicans hold a larger majority in the state House. 

It’s a crowded ballot this November that features State Board of Education and East Lansing school board races, along with elections for leadership of Lansing Community College and university governance boards.

With the host of races, Gordon urges residents to flip over their ballot and review the items on the backside, which includes five proposed amendments to the city charter.

Three of the amendments were recommended by a committee that spent months reviewing the city’s guiding document.

The first amendment would remove the requirement that a City Council meeting scheduled on a holiday would have to be rescheduled to the next secular day. It would also allow a designee of the city clerk to sign the minutes for City Council meetings and for minutes of regular and special City Council meetings to be posted online for the public. The amendment also seeks to allow the East Lansing Police Chief to have a designee serve as sergeant-at-arms during council meetings.

The second amendment proposal would allow a designee to attend City Council meetings on behalf of the city clerk.

The third proposal would amend rules about the city entering into contracts to allow designees of the city attorney and chief financial officer to aid in the execution of contracts. Current rules outline that the city attorney is required to draw up and approve contract documents and the chief financial officer is responsible for certifying whether there are sufficient funds for the contract. The proposed amendment would allow designees of the city attorney and chief financial officer to fulfill those obligations in contracts.

This is the second batch of charter amendments recommended by the Charter Review Committee to be put on a ballot. The first three recommendations were easily approved by voters in the August primary election, with each amendment supported by at least 88% of voters.

The two citizen-led ballot initiatives on the November ballot aim to amend the city charter to create a healthcare advisory committee in East Lansing and to move East Lansing City Council elections to even years.

If passed, the first ballot initiative would create a Citizens’ Advisory Healthcare Action Committee to examine healthcare access and affordability. The committee would review federal, state and local policies and evaluate the impact they have on local healthcare access. Members of the committee would be appointed by the City Council and council members would be required to adopt a Healthcare Action Plan.

Community Action Michigan, the nonprofit organization behind the healthcare ballot effort, is mobilizing in five other Michigan municipalities to create localized healthcare committees.

East Lansing voters will also decide the fate of a city charter amendment that seeks to move City Council elections from odd to even-numbered years. The amendment would keep council elections in November and align them with state and federal races, boosting turnout.  The terms of current council members would be extended by one year, if the amendment passes.

An opposition group, advocating against moving local elections to even years, says the change would detract from local issues as voters would be more inclined to focus on higher offices and vote on the basis of partisan affiliation when the City Council elections are for nonpartisan seats. Meanwhile, the group that backs the petition for even-year elections asserts that the change would lead to higher voter turnout for city elections and could save the city money by holding elections in the same cycle.