Tips to prepare for the Tuesday primary

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) - This primary day, voters will head to the polls to select partisan candidates for every thing for various elected positions from county sheriff to U.S. senator.

Voting locations, sample ballots and more are available online at the Michigan Secretary of State's website.

Those who received an absentee ballot must return it by Tuesday in person. Postmarking a ballot by election day is not good enough -- it has to be in the clerks hand.

In the newly-redrawn 76th House district, there will be some special circumstances. There are two write in candidates in addition to the one candidates name printed on the ballot.

Rep. Roy Schmidt is running as a Republican and is the only  name on the ballot in that race.

Those wishing to write in Bing Goei name will have to do so in the appropriate spot. The same is true for the Democrats: No name will appear on the ballot, though Winnie Brinks is running for the Democratic nomination.

Both Brinks and Goei will have to receive a percentage of the highest vote-getter in their primary. For Brinks, that is likely to be Senator Debbie Stabenow, who is running unopposed. For Goei, it could be U.S. Congressman Justin Amash, who is also running unopposed and will likely get more individual votes that the Republican senate candidates, since there are multiple people in that race.

Goei will have to get 5% of the Amash total and more votes than Schmidt in order to transfer to the general election.

The results will be counted by hand, will likely be in later than normal and will not be official until canvassers go through them thoroughly.

However, there should be preliminary numbers Tuesday night, though it is likely to be a long night of tabulation because all those write-ins have to be counted by hand.

Voters may not vote in both the Republican or Democratic primaries. Voters cannot vote in both and or switch from party to party on the same ballot. Doing so will spoil the ballot.

Stay with 24 Hour News 8 Tuesday night for full election results. See results as they come in on woodtv.com and onPolitix and tune into WXSP at 10 p.m., WOTV4Women at 11 p.m., and WOOD TV8 at midnight for details.

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Online:

Newly re-drawn House districts (pdf)