Livingston Today

Michigan voters can trust their local clerks to count their ballots accurately and on time, Rep. Ann Bollin (R-Brighton Township) told the host of WJR's "The Frank Beckmann Show."

The winners could be determined by midnight on election day, predicted Bollin, a former clerk in Brighton Township.

“I want to assure you that our local clerks have been running elections in the state of Michigan for years,” she told Beckmann. “They know how to do their jobs. They’ve done an excellent job. We have many provisions in existing law that allow for checks and balances with our election system.”

Rep. Ann Bollin | Michigan House Republicans

Her advice to Michigan residents is: “Let them do their jobs. Stop inciting confusion, violence, disenfranchising the voters, the workers, the clerks. I have the clerks’ backs. They can get this done; they will get it done."

Absentee ballots are “nothing new,” according to Bollin. Clerks are used to checking signatures on ballots to make sure they match the one on file, she explained.

“The voter fills out an application, they sign that application with their signature, and it gets returned to the local clerk,” Bollin told Beckmann. “They check that signature on the application against one on file. The ballot then gets issued. When the ballot comes back, they check it again against the application and the voter’s file.”

There will be an uptick in absentee-ballot voting because of COVID-19, Bollin said.

“But overall turnout, it’s going to increase somewhat, maybe 10%,” she said on the radio show. “The difference is they are going to an absent-voter counting board vs. in the precinct.”

Both sides have a common goal when it comes to elections. “We want every eligible voter to get out there and be able to vote freely, secretly, independently and securely,” she told Beckmann.

Threats of violence are “despicable on both sides,” the congresswoman said.

“Never is it right to condone violence, to suggest it, threaten it,” she said on the radio program. “We should all be adults. We need to really stop that nonsense, that noise and do the right thing.”