All 83 Michigan counties have certified the 2024 election results

LANSING, Mich. — All 83 Michigan county canvassing boards certified the results of the 2024 presidential election, said Angela Benander, spokeswoman for the Secretary of State's office on Wednesday morning.

The votes by the county-level bipartisan canvassing boards, which were required under Michigan law to occur by Tuesday, marked a key step in the process of finalizing the tallies in the battleground state.

The Board of State Canvassers could certify the statewide numbers as early as Friday.

Under the current statewide unofficial tallies, Republican President-elect Donald Trump won Michigan by 80,156 votes or 1.4 percentage points over Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, 49.7%-48.3%. However, the numbers might still shift slightly.

On Wednesday, Paula Bowman, co-president of the League of Women Voters of Michigan, applauded election workers and volunteers for working "to ensure that our election this year was fair and accurate."

"Every Michigan voter should feel confident that safeguards in our elections worked as they should have, including catching technical and human errors during the canvassing period and then fixing them," Bowman added. "Our election clerks deserve credit for their work to make sure every vote is counted."

Supporters of the League of Women Voters of Michigan observed the operations of canvassing boards in most of Michigan’s 83 counties, according to a statement from the organization.

In Michigan, a four-member canvassing board is in charge of certifying the results within each county. The panels feature two Republicans and two Democrats. Their process centers on checking election records from each precinct for accuracy.

In Calhoun County, in recent days, the canvass also involved re-tallying absentee ballots from the City of Battle Creek. A problem with the reporting of Battle Creek's absentee ballots caused about 2,800 ballots not to be included in the initial results, according to the county clerk's office.

Calhoun County was home to a competitive state House race between Republican Steve Frisbie, a Calhoun County commissioner, and incumbent state Rep. Jim Haadsma, D-Battle Creek.

In the initial unofficial numbers for the 44th District, Frisbie beat Haadsma by 1,381 votes, 19,233-17,852. After the discrepancy was discovered, Frisbie's lead dropped to 58 votes.

The results on the Secretary of State's website Wednesday showed Frisbie with a 61-vote advantage.

Christopher Trebilcock, an attorney who's representing Haadsma, said Wednesday that a recount is "certainly possible" in the race.

"The county canvass revealed additional questions about potential mistakes that could affect the outcome," Trebilcock said.

The Secretary of State's unofficial numbers on Wednesday also pointed to a close result for a second seat on the Michigan State University Board of Trustees. Republican Mike Balow is the leader for the first seat with 24.9% of the votes. For a second seat, Democrat Rebecca Bahar-Cook was ahead of Republican Julie Maday 24.24%-24.2% or by 4,083 votes or 0.04 percentage points.

Michigan's canvassing process has been in the spotlight since the 2020 presidential election, when Trump and his campaign advanced unproven and false claims that widespread fraud somehow influenced his loss that year to Democrat Joe Biden.

In 2020, Trump personally pressured two Republican members of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers not to sign the certification of the results in their county.

The Board of State Canvassers certified the statewide numbers on Nov. 23, 2020.

In August, a Detroit News analysis found 55% of the 332 county canvassers in Michigan were new to their positions and were not serving in them in November 2020.

_____