LANSING, Mich. — The city of Lansing is hoping to ease voters’ minds about voting absentee.
A new ballot tracking system allows Lansing's city clerk to see where ballots might get stuck in the mail.
“I did have some hesitation about voting absentee,” Julie Vandenboom, who voted absentee for the August 4 primary, said.
This is Vanderboom's first time voting absentee.
“We’re trying minimize the amount of time we are spending out in contact with other people,” she said. “It just seemed like a great opportunity to do that.”
Vandenboom said being able to track her ballot helped her decide to try absentee voting.
“Just because you hear folks that are worried about ballots not being counted,” Vanderboom said. “Is your ballot going to go sit in a box somewhere and be overlooked until the day after election day?”
Those concerns are why Lansing City Clerk Chris Swope decided to add another layer of tracking.
"We're able to head off any problems with missed delivery," he said.
There are now barcodes on every ballot that’s mailed to Lansing voters that’s tied to their voter IDs. It scans like any other piece of mail and lets officials know where it is.
If someone’s email is on file, they’ll get those alerts too.
“We want to know the ballots the voters put in the mail actually make it to us,” Swope said. “That’s a really big part of Election security.”
Swope said with this system, they've already caught ballots just sitting at post office.
“They had been in a post office in Pontiac for four or five days, so I contacted the post office and was like, ‘can you figure out why these ballots are just kind of sitting there?’” Swope said.
Vandenboom said this is changing how she votes in future elections.
"I put myself on the permanent absentee list," she said.
Swope said the extra tracking isn’t costing the city any extra money because ballots are now mailed using non-profit rates, instead of first class mail.
He said the savings are more than enough to pay for the feature.
People who haven't mailed absentee ballots are encouraged to get them in the mail soon to make sure it makes it election officials on time.
It takes about a week for a ballot to reach the election office.
Lansing voters can also drop it off 24 hours a day at drop boxes outside Lansing City Hall.
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