With 98% of precincts reporting in Michigan, the "uncommitted" Democratic vote has topped 100,000 – more than 13% – in the 2024 presidential primary.
It's the highest number of uncommitted voters in the Democratic presidential primary since 2008, and a more than 400% increase from the number of uncommitted votes in the 2020 presidential primary.
According to the Michigan Secretary of State's Office, an uncommitted vote "implies that they are exercising a ‘party vote’ but are not committed to any of the candidates listed on the ballot. The uncommitted vote position does not rotate like other candidate names and remains in the position above the write-in line."
It comes amid a push from many activists throughout the state to vote uncommitted on the Democratic ballot as a protest to President Joe Biden's handling of the Israel-Hamas War.
There were also more than 33,000 uncommitted votes on the Republican side, topping the more than 28,000 uncommitted votes for the Republican presidential primary in 2020.
In Wayne County, with all but one precinct reporting, there were 26,458 uncommitted votes on the Democratic ballot. The breakdown by county is below.
Wayne County (877/878 precincts reporting)
- President Joe Biden: 123,240
- Uncommitted: 26,458
Washtenaw County (100% reporting)
- President Joe Biden: 37,163
- Uncommitted: 8,237
Oakland County (100% reporting)
- President Joe Biden: 97,873
- Uncommitted: 15,358
Macomb County (100% reporting)
- President Joe Biden: 48,676
- Uncommitted: 8,012
Watch: Michigan activists urge voters to chose "uncommitted" on the primary ballot to protest President Biden's approach to the war in Gaza:
In 2008, there were 238,168 uncommitted votes cast, but that's due to controversy surrounding Michigan's plan that moved the primary up to Jan. 15, defying Democratic National Committee rules.
In October 2008, four candidates, including Barack Obama, requested their names be removed from the ballot, meeting the deadline to withdraw their name from the ballot.
We went back and looked at Michigan Secretary of State data to see how many uncommitted votes have been cast for each party in the past presidential primary elections.
For Democrats, the numbers were:
For Republicans, the numbers were:
