MERIDIAN TOWNSHIP - Meridian Township's Clerk, Brett Dreyfus, delivered the election report Thursday night at the Township Board meeting.

The report consisted of most of the numbers from the election on November 3rd regarding Meridian Township, as well as how the day went overall at the precincts.

In the Township overall, 33,980 people are registered to vote. The number of registered voters increased by over 2,000 people since the last election.

“That’s a pretty big increase,” said Dreyfus. “I was surprised to see those numbers going up.”

About 76% of those registered casted their ballots as either absentee or filled them out at the polls.

The residents in Meridian favored voting absentee. Only 27% of the ballots were cast at the polls this election. The other 73% were all absentee ballots.

The Township issued a total of 20,349 absentee voter ballots. 18,800 of those ballots were returned for a return rate of 92.3%.

Despite the Township, and even the nation, issuing more absentee ballots than ever before because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the return rate of absentee voter, or AV, ballots are quite similar to previous years.

“Even though we had much smaller numbers of AV ballots sent out in the last few years, we always had typically around a 92%-93% return rate,” said Dreyfus. “Statistically, it was interesting to note that the number held up the same even with this particular election in place.”

Overall, there were very few complications at Meridian’s precincts. At one of the precincts, one tabulator went out for around two hours. This was fixed by using the backup tabulator machine that was ordered years ago. The backup machine caused some issues later on, but the polls were about to close. This leaves two tabulators that will need to be fixed in the future.

Election results for Meridian Township are as follows:

Presidential:
N/A

Michigan Senator:
Gary Peters – 17,469
John James – 7,809

8th district congressional race:
Elissa Slotkin – 17,702
Paul Junge – 7,414

69th district state legislature
Julie Brixie: 17,359
Grace Norris: 7,336


Meridian Township Proposals:

Meridian Township EMS – Fire Protection Millage Renewal
YES - 19,760
NO - 4,014

Meridian Township Land Preservation Millage Renewal
YES - 17,960
NO - 5,560

Meridian Township Police Protection Millage Renewal
YES - 16,578
NO - 7,142


All of the incumbents for the Ingham County races defeated their challengers and remain in their current positions.

All members of the Township Board, as well as the Park Commission, ran unopposed and will keep their positions.