GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Outside of the Grand Rapids Public Museum Archives and Research Center, which is also home to the Grand Rapids Public Museum School, historic voting artifacts were brought out for students to experience.
The Kent County Clerk and the Associate Dean of Cooley Law School spoke to the students on the state's election security, and how far the nation has come in terms of making sure elections are secure.
"You can see over time how voting, the apparatuses, have have changed, but it all comes down to the very same thing, right? It's secure access to maintain your secret ballot," said Dale Robertson, GRPM President and CEO in his opening remarks.
The items on display included historic ballots, ballot boxes and voting booths.
Alex Forist, chief curator for the GRPM, showed how Americans used to vote through collecting a ticket from a party and putting the party's ticket in the ballot box.
Paper ballots were first introduced in the U.S. in 1888, which both Forist and the Kent County Clerk said introduced new security to the election process.
"You may have heard the phrase from back in the 1800s 'Vote early. Vote often,'" said Forist. "With these paper tickets like this, some with no voter registration, somebody could vote at one polling place and then go down the street to another one and vote again. Now we have systems in place to make sure that doesn't happen."
Explaining the brief history of voting machines as well, County Clerk Lisa Posthumus Lyons said paper ballots allow for a traceable record that have proven to be reliable.
"Our paper ballots always ensure that there's a paper record, a trail to go back and audit, to count, to recount," said Posthumus Lyons. "It is so critical. It's one of the most important checks and balances that we have."
Posthumus Lyons also answered questions from students and encouraged them to take part in elections as election workers and poll watchers.
"We talked about how after the election, we go through the paper material in a bipartisan way to make sure that it was accurate, and then afterwards, there's an opportunity for recounts and aggrieved candidates can always petition to have a recount," said Posthumus Lyons.
Early voting begins on Saturday, and official voting information can be found here.
