Counting votes on election day takes time – and this Midterm election cycle, full election results in Kalamazoo and Calhoun counties weren’t posted until the morning after election day.
Clerks in both counties say high voter turnout and long lines at the polls contributed to the delay — in Kalamazoo County, officials say over 126,000 people cast their ballots in this midterm election, as opposed to around 117,000 ballots cast in the 2022 midterm elections.
But Kalamazoo County Clerk Meredith Place says the process also requires several layers of data verification and organization to accurately report results — a process that she said takes even longer now, after special technology was removed from county tabulator machines.
"Our tabulators do not have a modem inside them. Those modems were removed in 2022," Place said.
Place says the loss of technology has created a burden for election workers.
“It used to be that the election inspectors would press that button close the polls and the results from that single tabulator would transmit to the county. That does not happen anymore and has not had happened for a few years," Place said.
Calhoun County Clerk Kimberly Hinckley said Calhoun county also does not have modems in its tabulators.
Additionally, Hinckley said that ensuring everything matches up correctly takes time — poll workers must make sure that the voter count and ballot count matches in each precinct.
Hinckley said when poll workers find data that doesn't match up, they have to talk to state-level election officials. She said on election night, state workers were running on a backlog — and poll workers in Calhoun County were "on the phone with the state trying to figure things out", which made the process take even longer.
Overall, Hinckley and Place said there are countless tasks that poll workers must complete aside from just counting the ballots themselves.
"They have to complete required documentation in the physical poll books. They have to print the results tape. That results tape is printed out of the machine itself and takes time. All the inspectors who are working have to sign that results tape and they have to sign the physical poll book," Place said.
And the list goes on.
Place said she wants people to know how much work truly goes into counting votes on election night — and understand why results might not be available the night of the election.
She and Hinckley both say Kalamazoo and Calhoun counties are dedicated to getting results out as fast as possible. And they both agree that updated technology could make the process quicker.
