Even before the coronavirus pandemic, Tina Barton knew counting mail ballots would become a problem.
Barton is the city clerk of Rochester Hills, Mich., and after a 2018 state constitutional amendment meant that all voters in Michigan could vote absentee without an excuse, she began sounding the alarm: Election officials were going to start getting a lot more mail, but they weren’t being given any more time to deal with it.
A local election that she administered last year, after the new law went into effect, saw more than 80% of voters cast an absentee ballot.
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