Before You Vote!

If you wish to vote with an Absentee Ballot, you must fill out an absentee ballot application for every election. Your Clerk must have the application with your signature requesting the ballot. The signature on the application is compared to the digital and/or paper signature that the Clerk has on file, and if they match the application is scanned in as received.

Absent voter ballots have already been sent to your Clerk’s office. Ballots go through testing to ensure that everything is correct. Ballots are mailed out to those registered voters who have already completed and returned the absent voter ballot application to the Clerk’s office.

These are your options:

1 At the Clerk’s office, you can apply, vote the absentee ballot in the Clerk’s office and submit the ballot in person -- right there!

2 At the Clerk’s office, you can apply, take the absentee ballot home, mark the ballot, and drop the ballot off at the Clerk’s office or in the Clerk’s Drop Box; or mail the ballot back to the Clerk (1st class postage required) by October 19.

3 At home, once your ballot arrives by mail, vote the absentee ballot and use the provided envelope to mail your ballot (1st Class postage required). After Monday, October 19, use the Clerk’s Drop Box, or deliver your ballot in person to your Clerk’s office.

Your Clerk’s Drop Box is located at the same address as your City or Township Clerk’s Office. That address is printed on the envelope for returning your absentee ballot.

Once your ballot is returned to the Clerk’s office, it is scanned back into the computer and your original application for the ballot is matched with it. The signature on the ballot envelope is verified again. If everything matches, the Clerk signs off on the envelope, and the ballot with the application is stored in a safe until Election Day.

The LWVBCC Board and all League members have been asked to help with registering students to vote at Andrews University in Berrien Springs. We will be holding voter registration activities at the Andrews University Student Center starting Monday, October 5 and continuing through Friday, October 9.

All members are welcome to participate in registering the eligible students. Those members who have previously indicated an interest in doing voter service will also be called, as well as those who helped us register high school students last February.

Registration will occur both in the morning and the afternoon each day at the Campus Center on West University Blvd.

You can see Stone's fascinating presentation: Click See YouTube here.

Census counting efforts that began in mid-March amid the spread of COVID -19 ended on September 30, 2020. Paper questionnaires postmarked on September 30 must be received by October 7th at the census processing centers to be included in the once-in-a-decade count.

Total Response: 98,200,000 locations

Total Enumerated: 97.9%

Total Self Responded: 66.4%

Michigan Response Rate

Total Enumerated: 98.2% (32nd of 50 states)

Total Self Responded: 71.0% (6th  of 50 states)

Berrien Response Rate

Total Self Responded: 66.8% (957th of 3,215 counties)

Cass Response Rate

Total Self Responded: 64.1% (1,242nd of 3,215 counties)

Your League was recently called upon to moderate a five-person forum presented at the Buchanan Area Senior Center. These candidates wanted to introduce themselves to Buchanan citizens and did so via a Zoom meeting telecast live on Facebook and YouTube. Shown above, they are (l to r) Monroe Lemay, Larry Money, Patrick Swem, Dan Vigansky, and Jeccika Yoder. More than 100 citizens Zoomed in to watch while the candidates answered a series of 15 questions on issues important to Buchanan residents. Recorded on Sept. 22, their video is available on YouTube at Buchanan Forum. We expect to do more of these as election season moves along! You can read more about this event in "The Paper" in Buchanan. (Photo courtesy "The Paper.")

Michigan’s Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission has begun its work.

One dozen members of the League of Women Voters in Michigan have formed a team to check that the Commission follows the State Constitution as amended by Proposal 2 in 2018, as well as Roberts Rules of Order.

You can watch the Commission in action live on the Secretary of State’s Facebook page (Click Here), and see recordings of past meetings on YouTube.  

The next Book Group gathering will be Monday, November 9, at 10:00 a.m. at the home of Ginny Burd.

The "assignment" is to read the first 12 chapters of "A People's History of the United States" by Howard Zinn. That is roughly halfway through the book. Yes, that is the same book we had listed for discussion this past week, but it seems we were not quite prepared for the extraordinary wealth of information contained in the book and the amount of time devoted to reading and thinking about so many details.

Other book suggestions are Kamala Harris's "The Truth's We Hold: An American Journey" and Bob Woodward's book "Rage."

Always stimulating conversation and good company! Since we intend to continue social distancing, please let Ginny know if you plan to attend.  269 465 3132

The 13th Annual Fresh Water Summit is being held via Zoom on each of the four Fridays of October. I'm planning to "attend" each of these sessions, the first of which discusses Great Lakes Water Levels.

The LWVLMR annual meeting is also scheduled for October and will be held virtually. The decision to hold this meeting via Zoom was made back in May. It was a difficult decision at that time since many hoped the U.S. and the world would have "beaten" Covid-19 by October. As it turns out, the decision was a good one.

Details are still being finalized and should be published by this weekend. Go to LWVLMR.org for more information. -- Chris

Christiana Zilke, Vice President

Jane Raymond, Recording Secy

Linda Cheek, Corresponding Secy