Report: Focus of Candidates Now on Absentee Voters

While Governor Snyder readies for another of his town hall-style events tonight at a high school in Ingham County, those behind the scenes in his camp and in the camps of other candidates, are focusing on voters as yet undecided and with absentee ballots in hand.

The Detroit News is reporting today that the Republicans and Democrats and their political allies have developed sophisticated systems to track the return of the nearly 600,000 absent ballots that have already been sent out.

Those who qualify for absentee voting are over the age of 60, otherwise home-bound or will be out of the voting precinct on election day and unable to make it to the polls between the hours of 7 a.m. and 8 p.m.

The article says the tracking indicates that just under 126,000 of the ballots have been returned so far to clerks in Michigan's 83 counties.  That leaves a lot of voters yet to fill out the ballots and who may still be influenced on whom to vote for.

Campaigns have switched, to a certain degree, from door-to-door campaigning to searching voter databases and utilizing social media technology to get their message out.

"That's part of our strategy to make sure we're hitting that voter when they do receive that ballot and make sure they vote our way and they turn the ballot back in," said Lon Johnson, chairman of the Michigan Democratic Party.

While recent polls have shown Snyder in the lead, most analysts believe the vote could rest on undecided voters.

Join Jo Anne Paul weekdays for news updates on 99.1 WFMK-FM, 100.7 WITL-FM and 1240 WJIM-AM and the other stations of the Michigan Talk Network 

joanne.paul@townsquaremedia.com