Governor announces dates for special election to fill vacant State House seats
Overlap with presidential primary will require extra voter education
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced that a special election will be held next year to fill two vacant seats in the Michigan House of Representatives.
Warren voters will elect someone to the 13th House District seat previously held by newly-elected Mayor Lori Stone. Voters in Westland will select someone to replace Kevin Coleman, who also won his mayoral election on Nov. 7, in the 25th District.
The governor on Wednesday called for a special primary election to be held on Jan. 30, 2024, and the general election to be held on April 16, 2024.
Until the two seats are filled, the House will have a 54-54 split between Democratic and Republican lawmakers. Stone and Colemen are both Democrats and gave their party a majority in the House. Macomb County Democratic Committee Chair Alysa Diebolt said she expects several people from her party to run in the primary and offered that Macomb County Commissioner Mai Xiong, who lost her race against Sonja Buffa for Warren City Clerk on Nov. 7 has already announced her candidacy.
“I don’t know of anyone else who has filed, but I am sure other people are going to,” Diebolt said.
Macomb County Republican Party Chair Mark Forton said he does not know
of anyone from his party who has announced their candidacy, but sees the special election as an opportunity for Republicans to gain some traction in the legislature.
“I believe there are more people in the Warren area that have a more conservative mindset and do not like what is going on,” Forton said. “People in Warren are working people and union people and they want to make a living for their family.”
With the special election primary scheduled for Jan. 30 and the presidential primary for Feb. 27, there will be an overlap of absentee ballots being submitted to clerks in Westland and Warren. A similar overlap could occur with the April 16 and May 7 elections.
Buffa said she is scheduled to meet with Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson next week to discuss possibly color coding ballot envelopes or labels to make
it easier for election workers to separate the absentee ballots, which will be submitted during the same time period.
Warren’s clerk said she does not intend to implement early voting for the special House elections.
“The city’s early election plan has already been submitted to the state,” said Buffa. “Also, once you commit to having early voting for a local election that is not statewide, you must have early voting for all local elections.
“You are not able to pick and choose.”
Buffa said she is planning to increase voter education this year because of the special election and the new voting procedures that are in place for statewide elections like the February presidential primary.
Diebolt agrees that voter education is vital as well as an emphasis on the importance of voting in each and every election. Voter turnout
in presidential elections is typically high, but local elections tend to have much lower participation. Just 20.5% of registered Warren voters participated in the Nov. 7 municipal election; for the November 2020 presidential election, voter turnout was 63.6%.
Until the election is held, Diebolt said Democrats in the legislature will need to adjust their approach to proposing various bills.
“When I was a staffer in Lansing when the Republicans had the majority, for Dems to get a bill through or even to get a little bit of movement they had to go at a marathon pace,” said Diebolt. “With the Democratic majority, it has been a sprint to get real work done for real people in Michigan.
“In this time where it is 54-54, the Democrats will have to transform back to that marathon speed.”