Michigan should have full, unofficial election results by the end of the day after the Nov. 5 election, Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said Sunday.
Benson made the comment during an appearance on the CBS program “Face The Nation” on Sunday, when she answered questions about the election certification and the vote count.
“We do have more options to process ballots sooner than Election Day” since the 2020 election, Benson said. “I’m optimistic we could see results even sooner.”
While it could take nearly a day for state results, third parties including the Associated Press regularly call races long before unofficial results are available. Those are projections based on the vote counts already reported.
Benson told “Face The Nation” host Margaret Brennan she would still compel local canvassers to certify the election if former President Donald Trump wins the state.
More than 1 million absentee ballots have already been returned in Michigan, meaning that as of Monday morning more than 14% of Michigan registered voters have voted 15 days before Election Day.
Early, in-person voting launched in Detroit this past Saturday and Benson said close to 2,000 people voted on the first day, 10 times as the turnout on the first day in the August primary election.
Benson also criticized Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X, formerly known as Twitter, after he claimed that absentee ballots are an invitation to fraud and spread a conspiracy theory about voting machines.
“It’s incumbent upon all of us to look to trusted sources of information, like your local election officials … as opposed to people who are running social media companies with particular agendas and who have a history of amplifying conspiracy theories and false information,” Benson said.
She and Musk also sparred on X on Sunday over Bridge Michigan reporting that found new state laws, including automatic voter registration when driver licenses are renewed, have led to more registered voters in the state than eligible ones.
The state currently has 8.4 million registered voters, according to the latest records obtained by Bridge Michigan, nearly 500,000 more than the number of people in the state who are old enough to vote.
While critics say the inflated rolls are not ideal, no one is suggesting they have contributed to fraud. By federal law, the state or local clerks can only remove voters from the rolls after the state notified they moved to another state, or if election mail sent to their home is returned as undeliverable and after they do not vote in two consecutive federal elections.
By 2027, an estimated 606,800 inactive voters are expected to be removed from rolls.
