Filing Deadline Passes, Clerk Marie Wicks Presents on Two Upcoming Elections

The deadline for candidates to file to run in November’s election passed yesterday (July 23), giving more clarity on what to expect in this year’s races. 

Much of the discussion around upcoming elections will focus on the federal elections at the top of the ticket. Locally, it is anticipated there will be two big items, with four East Lansing Board of Education seats up for grabs and a charter amendment that focuses on the housing code likely to be before voters. 

Six candidates are running for four school board seats. 

After ELi reported last Wednesday that only one candidate had filed to run in the Board of Education race, things heated up in the week before the filing deadline. There will be six candidates competing for four seats on the school board. 

The school board election is actually broken up into two different races. One race is for three full, four-year terms on the board. That race has four candidates: Chris Martin, Elizabeth Lyons, Felix Thibodeau and Estrella Torrez. Martin, Lyons and Torrez each currently serve on the board. 

The other school board race is for one two-year seat on the board. In that election, incumbent Gary Holbrook will compete against Abbie Tykocki for the seat. 

The competition is relatively low in the board of education elections this year. In comparison, in 2022 there were 10 candidates for four open seats and in 2020 there were eight candidates vying for three available seats. 

As the election nears, ELi will work to gather more information about candidates and pinpoint their priorities if they are elected. 

Housing charter amendment appears to have easily exceeded signature requirement. 

Throughout much of the late spring and summer, residents have been gathering signatures for a charter amendment that would change the city’s housing and rental regulations. City Clerk Marie Wicks is still canvassing these signatures, but said the group appears to have collected well over the required amount. 

Essentially, the city currently limits who can live in a home by family relationships and other exemptions that are defined within the code. The petitioning group opposes limiting non-rent paying guests who can live in a home by relationships and believes setting numerical limits makes more sense. 

Those in favor of the amendment have spoken at City Council meetings about instances where they may have someone staying in their home that would violate the city code, but aren’t causing any harm. Homeowners who violate the code risk thousands of dollars in fines. 

However, two members of City Council, Mark Meadows and Erik Altmann, have strongly pushed back against the movement, saying there could be unintended consequences. Altmann and Meadows have said they are concerned the amendment would interfere with the city’s rental restriction district system and hurt the city’s ability to enforce its housing and rental laws. 

Meadows has also said issues with the housing or rental code should not be addressed through a charter amendment, but through ordinance changes. He has been working on ordinance changes that he says address concerns residents have mentioned at meetings. An initial draft of these proposed changes should be ready for the public to review by council’s Aug. 13 meeting, Meadows said. 

The ballot initiative will still be reviewed by the state attorney general’s office and governor’s office. As recently as 2023, a proposed charter amendment was blocked from reaching the ballot by the governor’s office. 

Assuming this proposal is not blocked by the state, it will likely be decided at the November election. Read ELi’s past coverage of the proposed charter amendment here. 

City Clerk Marie Wicks gives a presentation on upcoming elections at City Council meeting. 

Wicks gave a presentation at the Tuesday, July 23 City Council meeting that shared information about the upcoming elections. The clerk’s office will oversee two more elections this year, with the primary election scheduled for Aug. 6 and general election on Nov. 5. 

Wicks highlighted several changes Michigan has made to the election process in recent years, including any reason absentee voting, early voting, adding ballot drop boxes and allowing same day voter registration. 

Same day registration is a major development in East Lansing because the temporary student population juggling multiple addresses consistently had challenges registering to vote in the correct location in past years. Now, election workers can help register students at their East Lansing address up to and on the day of the election. 

But the change has come with new challenges. At the last two major election cycles, in 2020 and 2022, students have formed lengthy lines at the clerk’s office and satellite clerk’s office on campus as they waited to register, with some voters being in line past midnight. On election day, registration is not available at regular voting precincts and must be done at a clerk’s office. 

To offset voters registering the day of the election, Wicks is hopeful that the city is able to convince voters, particularly students, to vote early. 

For the August primary election, an early voting center will operate from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. for nine days leading up to the election, starting Saturday, July 27. The station will be located at 405 Grove Street and parking is available in the lot east of City Hall. 

The city will have two early voting stations set up for the Nov. 5 general election, one at the Hannah Community Center and one at Michigan State University’s Communication Arts and Sciences building. The MSU center will be open for two weeks leading up to the election and the early voting location at the community center will be open for nine days. 

Importantly, the MSU early voting center will also function as a satellite clerk’s office, meaning students will be able to register to vote at that location as well. 

“We are trying to make it a one-stop-shop,” Wicks said. 

Wicks is also trying to reduce lines by identifying voters in the wrong place while they are still in line. She said many residents live in nearby jurisdictions, like Bath or Meridian Township, and need to go to that jurisdiction to register to vote. Election workers with tablets will speak with residents in line to find some of these people in the wrong place before they wait through the entire line. 

“If you need to be at Meridian Township, we want someone in line to catch you and get you where you need to be on time,” Wicks said. “It’s not just about our voters.”

Wicks shared that Michigan is one of eight states that administers elections locally. Other states hold elections through counties, she said. This means East Lansing needs to find plenty of residents to help make the elections happen. 

The city is recruiting election workers and is paying an increased rate from past years. Election workers are paid $20 per hour and precinct chairs are paid $25 per hour. Those interested in working can reach out to the clerk’s office. 

“It’s a very fulfilling experience,” Meadows said, reflecting on his experiences as an election worker. “It’s part of democracy, it’s really very American. If you do have the opportunity to do it, I really urge you to do it.”

Correction 7/25: This story was updated to replace the phrase “non-rent paying tenants” with “non-rent paying guests” to more accurately describe the charter amendment group’s motivations.