GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. —
Absentee voter ballot boxes are available for Grand Rapids residents leading up to the Aug. 6 state primary election.
Since 2022, for every 15,000 registered voters there needs to be one ballot drop box in the state. Grand Rapids has 10 drop box locations.
Ballot boxes are available a little over a month before each election, but City Clerk Joel Hondorp said boxes are out earlier to accommodate absentee ballot applications. Those must be sent at least 75 days before an election.
Grand Rapids has an absentee voting page on the city’s website and a list of drop box locations. Ballots should be put in your precinct's box, but Hondorp said they will do everything “humanly possible” to get the ballots to the correct spot.
“I've had the Marquette city clerk send, you know, student from Grand Rapids at Northern Michigan, they dropped their [ballot] there in Marquette,” he said. “So, we do everything humanly possible get those ballots to the correct clerk.”
Even though the upcoming election is a state primary, Hondorp said every vote counts.
“One of my slogans is there's no such thing as a small election. Every election is important, even if it is a school local millage, that's a lot of your tax dollars," he said. “So those, those local millages, are really, really important, if that's the only thing on.”
All drop boxes in Grand Rapids are video monitored and the boxes are checked every business day. Ballots are collected every business day.
To register for an absentee ballot, voters can visit Michigan’s voter website and can also find their local absentee ballot box. Kent County voters can find voting information at KentCountyVotes.com.
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