UPPER PENINSULA, Mich. (WZMQ) – Voters who have subtle partisanships with their party will most likely vote the same way from election to election. This year, there is a lot of information on the ballot with a good chance of voters teetering or changing the campaign they follow.
Matthew Grossmann, the director of the institute for public policy and social research at Michigan State University, says there is a big difference in turnout with voters being able to send in absentees.
“There is a very long-running pattern that goes back more than a hundred years of the president’s party losing seats in the mid-term elections,” said Grossmann.
In recent months, we’ve seen a similar pattern following not only the presidential campaign but the governor race here in Michigan as well.
“The last midterm election had extremely high turnout the highest in decades and the same with the last presidential election.”
This is a big voting season, being that just at the state level alone, we have the Governor races, all the house districts, and senate districts.
The main issues for this political season are the inflation in the economy and one that has great potential for being different this time around is the focus on abortion rights. With the recent decision by the Supreme Court, another big difference in voter turnout this year is expected.
“The issue that has the most potential to be different this time is abortion because of the Supreme Court’s recent decision, but most people that have those concerns again fall under that category of people that have decided on a general partisan side and will continue voting for that side,” said Grossmann.
We’ve also seen updates in the voting systems where participants can vote weeks ahead of schedule with mail-in ballots. “We don’t know yet whether that is a habit that people have that will be reinforced this time or whether it will continue”. In the past years, they’ve had these procedures in place to assist with the complications following the pandemic. This year, the absentees are still being sent out and could be seen as a possible new procedure of voting.
To find more information on this year’s voting season, the links below should be of some assistance:
