yeah. Well, I appreciate the call back, and as as I think, has been communicated to you, I'm looking for, you know, just general process, information about how votes are processed in Michigan, how they're tabulated. You know, whether that's done at precincts or at the county level or both, or,
you know, outsourced it all. It goes to China first that goes back to us. Oh, very good.
Free and fair elections. I love it.
You know, by the way, I get your newspaper at home. Well, it doesn't come at home without just on the internet only, yeah, or on my emails. That's why I had to throw the China. I was doing a China connection in for you. Yes, we appreciate
so. Yeah, Macomb County is going to be right in the middle of it, from the looks of things, yeah. So I know a lot of people are going to be interested in in the count here, and we're just trying to get on battleground states, really, but I'm assigned to Michigan, like when the polls close and what happens to the ballots from that point?
So the polls close nine o'clock on Tuesday. The tabulators at that point if, once the lines are gone and they're finished, they close down the tabular, and I can show you the process too. They close down the tabulator and run a tape on that, you know, the all the paperwork they need to run. They run all that immediately. Once they get all that processed, and they take that, they cut the stick out of the machines. It's cabled in, and they transport that stick to me, which we then post up as far as election results. At the same time, the clerks are finishing up for paperwork, and that same evening that it brings the paperwork into us, so the board of canvassers takes over. The next day
they start right away. The canvassers start right away.
Yeah, election, yeah. The next day they start, and they've got two weeks to finish.
And so when the canvassers, it's not an election until the canvassers are done and sign off. Is that correct? It's not official,
and then it's certified you're right, yeah,
so the and I'm not from Michigan, although I did grow up here, but yeah, it's been a long time. I lived in two places when I was a kid. One was over in the thumb over by Port Huron, little town called Lakeport. And oh god, country, oh man. We were, we were like, our house was a quarter mile from the lake, and there was a town, little town park with a beach right at the end of the road. It was amazing. So but then Owasso, I spent some time in Owasso. Lived there for about six years during part of my team. I am 64 and 350 some days, so just about to turn six.
Oh yeah, happy birthday. Hey, did you know the Emmons offers up in Owasso
emmondaffer? I did not.
They were made neighbor. My name moved up to was I'm 62 and one kid, John Evans offer was my age. And then there's Karen and Kathy that were older, and they moved city sectors, moved into a wasa.
How about that? Yeah, impression, more people been moving out of Owasso than moving in. But
yeah, well, it was a good town before that. They went from one extreme to the other. Yeah. They went from shooting bodies through shooting gear, yeah,
literally true. So in is Michigan, all on the same voting system, like you're all using machines. No, you're not using all the same equipment.
No, we use esns in Macomb Oakland uses heart, and Wayne uses dominion.
And these are all they're all machines. Um. Them with, you know, electronic voting, and it prints out a ballot. Or,
yeah, they're all tabulators. Yeah, no, they don't print out ballots. No, they don't print any ballots. These tabulators. All they do is you report the bubbles that are on there.
Okay, okay, so then, and then, when you say the you know, it prints out a tabulation at the end. And then they bring those, the you know, the electronic file to you. Is that correct? Did I understand you right?
Yes, it's a special state of expensive flash drive. It's cabled in the machine. They take it out, they put in a secured envelope, meaning you can't break into this envelope. They cable it in, they send it to us, and then we we put into our software and report it up. Yeah.
So they have to
bring us. They bring us a copy of the tape that runs out of the tabulator, as well as all their paperwork that goes with it.
Yeah. So you get, you get the printouts and their signed paperwork work, I imagine, because they, they've got a, if I'm thinking correctly, they have to tabulate, you know, that X number of votes totaled equals the same as the number of people that came through the door and that kind of thing. Or got a balance? Yeah, got a balance. And then the the canvassers basically do that on a larger scale. Am I? Am I correct the the campus,
yes, it's an audit of what everyone's done. Yeah, okay,
yeah, that makes sense. And so you have your your electronic and that's pretty much standard in in the larger counties. Is there anybody in Michigan still using paper?
We all use paper. Oh, I mean, we all use paper. The paper goes into the tabulators. It gets counted. No, every county in McColl in the state, the paper tabulation goes through.
I gotcha, yeah, okay. All right. All right. So I was thinking they, they just press the touch screen, and then there's, it's all electronic after that.
No, we got paper. We got one of the best we have, I'm gonna say we have the best voting systems in the world, in the universe.
Well, we, let's, let's go for the for the world. I can't validate the I can't, I can't
you guys force me to settle.
It sounds like what we use where I vote in Indiana. Sounds like an identical process. So then you're going to get, you know results fairly quickly, at least those initial No, okay, tell me how long, because
they got to get because they got to get those, those sticks out of the tabulators,
put them in a shirt, and they got to drive it to our office. And it could be anywhere from nine o'clock earliest, all the way out to I sometimes in the late morning,
okay? And that's because of this, the time to Canvas the the results and and physically get the stuff to you. Is that correct?
No, it's because I put this slightly because some communities got their act together quicker than others do, and that counties, cities,
okay, right? So they're just,
it just takes a longer, very well organized to get the results to us, and some take longer. Yeah, it's not dictated by size.
And then there is so in terms of, you know, people say they want to observe the vote count, and that kind of thing. There isn't that much to observe then. I mean, or is there what like if somebody shows up at the precinct say, I want to watch the tabulation? What? What would they be watching?
They. I think they watch for things like, Who's voting, making sure that they're a legitimate voter. They might look at nobody's messing with the, you know, the things that go through the machine and just reviewing the whole process, yeah, yeah. Nobody's, you know, changing or intimidating, or there's a lot of things they can witness sure
now, when the when the in, when the stuff that they bring you, they bring you that stick in the envelope and their paperwork from the precincts, then you're basically at at the county level. You're adding those results together. You're not recounting or re tabulating correct.
If it comes to us and there's some questions, there might be a need to do something right the sealed boxes with that, with the ballots, rerun them, see if there's, if there's an error somewhere, our board of canvases will find it.
So you want to prevent that on the front end by double checking the work that comes into you is that,
yeah, well, the front end would be before it comes to us. The back end is when we do it. Okay.
You want to correct on both counts occasions. Yeah, okay, so just to review, and I am taking notes, but I want to make sure I have it clear in my head, and I appreciate your patience, because
you guys with your papers, do a great job. That's why I subscribed to it.
Well, thank you. That's good to know, and always happy to meet a reader that's satisfied with the value. Okay, the polls close at eight o'clock. So
at what time
did you I thought it was eight, or is it nine?
Yes, I'm sorry, yes, it was eight. I thought I heard five,
yeah, eight o'clock. So the the election inspectors at the precinct level, they would take the printouts from the machines and they would tabulate, or, you know, Canvas, that the results from the day they would take the memory sticks, seal them in an envelope and together with the printouts and their paperwork and hand deliver that to the clerk's office.
Yes, so when the tabular, when you hit end the tab layer, will run a tape. It's a tape that comes out of machine giving all the results that were in their machine.
And then they've got to do, they just, like, total up all of those results. Or do they just do each machine and then bring, like, the the results of each machine to you, and then the votes get totaled, actually, at the county level. Or do they get, do they have a total each of those
tabulators total at all, and it's on the stick, and they bring us. We take the stick, we put in our software to populate everything.
Okay, excellent. Okay, so it can take a while, anywhere from nine o'clock to wee hours of the morning, but you generally do get a unofficial final result. You know, late in the evening of Election Day,
I would say we're probably going to get most all of them by late evening or early in the morning.
Okay, and then the canvassers come in the next day to review all that, or begin reviewing it, and they have two weeks to finish, and the results of the election are not final until the canvassers report comes out. Is that correct? Correct?
That's correct
on election night, then once you've got. Your totals. You've got all your precinct material in. You've covered that you've you've audited that you're satisfied that you you have a good total. You submit those numbers to the Secretary of State, or where does it where does the information go? From there,
submit to Secretary of State.
Okay, well, pretty straightforward, really,
it's the best system in the world.
I heard it was the best in the universe.
Well, that was the rumor I heard, but I was told not to go there.
As a reporter, I can only report what I can verify. I can't verify the universe.
But if you see how we do it, if you see how we do it, you say, wow, it's pretty tough to cheat in the fact that we're so decentralized. We are the most decentralized voting system in the state of Michigan in the country,
the most decentralized,
yes, because each individual clerk won their own election. So in order to cheat the system you'd have, to any large extent, you'd have to really have a lot of people involved. It's not like a centralized system where it's run somewhere else. It's all welcome,
like the precinct captains or inspectors. I'm not sure which is your term here, but like, do they they report that? Does it go first to the township clerk, or does it go directly from the precinct to the goes. So it goes from the precinct to the township, and the township clerk then brings it to you. Is that accurate? Correct?
That's accurate. So
for anybody to introduce error into that system maliciously, it would have to either involve a precinct, precinct captain, the township clerk, and you or the other persons would be able to,
I think, I think there's, there's a lot of horrors in there, not hands, okay, at the local level, there's a Democrat and Republican at each precinct to keep an eye out. They have top two parties, and then, you know, they work together to get the results to the clerk, and then the clerk, you know, moves it on to us. And you know, there's a lot of checks along the way. Like I said, I'm happy to if you wanted to come by you, I spent some time to show you how it all goes, and they maybe introduce you to a local clerk that would, you know, that's pretty good, that knows their stuff, why it works where it does. Yeah,
I would love to do that. And actually, that sounds like a second story, because what I what I'm working on right now is just to give people an overview of the process, how vote counting happens, state by state, especially in these battleground states, where people are going to be watching closely on the integrity part. That's that's a whole story, and I would love to come by and meet with you and a, you know, a local clerk, and just just see it from start to finish. Yeah,
that'd
be great. I'm here all week. Well, guess the week's getting away from us now, but and I'll be back next week as well. So what's
that? Call me. We'll get together. Just call me. We'll set up a time. If you talk to Michelle, who you spoke with, before she can set everything up.
Okay? I will do that, because I would love to get that and maybe get some pictures of your process, you know, just to illustrate it to people, if I can get a photographer up here with me, so if that's okay with you, I'm
okay with that. Very transparent, yeah,
well, Tony, I appreciate your time today, and this is super helpful for me, and I think our readers are going to benefit from it, and then I would love to follow up. I'll call Michelle, and hopefully we can get together and get overview the whole process.
Great. All right.
Thanks very much. And hopefully we'll be talking on. Soon,
