Some ballots could be late in absentee mix-up caused by the 'other' Bloomfield Township

Some residents of Bloomfield Township in Oakland County suspected fraud when they received absentee voter applications with a return address of “Bloomfield Township Clerk” in Port Hope, Michigan.

Port Hope? It's a three-hour drive from Oakland County. The tiny village of 250 people is near the tip of Michigan’s Thumb, in Huron County.

That strange address had some voters in Oakland County crying foul, especially because they've watched a hotly contested election unfold in their Bloomfield Township, for a police-and-fire millage renewal on March 10 ballots.

Yet, the oddly addressed absentee applications weren’t fraudulent — just a mix-up caused by a nonprofit group trying to get out the vote, said Jan Roncelli, clerk of Oakland County’s Bloomfield Township.

The well-meaning group has for years tried to increase voter turnout by promoting absentee voting, Roncelli said. Seems this is the second election in which its computer system failed to notice the vast difference between Michigan’s rural and sparsely populated Bloomfield Township, in the Thumb, and the affluent township of the same name with more than 42,000 residents in Oakland County.

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The problem has Roncelli worried that some absentee ballot applications for her township’s residents could get stuck somewhere in Huron County while deadlines pass for getting the snafu corrected — and for getting an absentee ballot sent “to our residents down here,” Roncelli said.

“It’s challenging enough to give all of our residents the right to vote,” she said Friday.

Roncelli has been trying to reach election officials in Huron County, she said. At the same time, she posted prominent warnings this week about the mix-up on her township's Facebook page and website.

The warnings say, in part: “The group sending these applications is NOT affiliated with Bloomfield Township. If you receive one of these applications, please do not complete and return it,” and instead come to the township hall for an application — or click on a link to the application on the township’s website.

“I hear this group, the Vote Project, caused the same problem with Rose Township,” Roncelli said. Michigan has a Rose Township in Oakland County as well as in Ogemaw County, she said.

"The same thing happened to us in the 2016 election," Roncelli said. At that time, she exchanged frequent emails with the Huron County clerk in time to speed absentee ballots to several of her township’s residents, she said.

Roncelli said she'd contacted county and state election officials this week, asking for help in correcting the problem.

The clerk of the other Bloomfield Township, reached Friday, said she’d received “maybe 50” of the erroneous applications from Oakland County voters.

“I gave them to the county. They’ll take care of it,” said Delphine Pawlowski. The Huron Township clerk could not be reached Friday.

Pawlowski said she’d been clerk for the other Bloomfield Township “for 30-some years.” She recalled the similar mix-up occurring in the 2016 election. In that instance, she’d received only a handful of the Oakland County applications.

The clerk’s office of the other Bloomfield Township is located in Pawlowski’s house, operating from either her dining-room or kitchen table, “whichever is closer,” she said.

Leo Savoie, the supervisor for the Bloomfield Township in Oakland County, said he remembered the same problem cropping up in 2016.

“We tried to get this corrected back then. Right now, we’re doing everything possible to make sure our people can get their ballots on time,” Savoie said.

The offices of the Bloomfield Township in Oakland County will be open for election-related business on Saturday, March 7, to handle any last-minute concerns, he said.

Contact: blaitner@freepress.com