Michigan early voting underway in midterm election. What to know ahead of Election Day.

With four weeks until the midterm election, Michigan voters are already deciding when and how they want to cast their ballots.

The latest numbers from the Michigan Department of State show more than two million absentee ballots have been requested statewide. More than 201,000 have already been returned, which is about 2.7 percent of Michigan's more than 7.3 million active registered voters.

Rusty Hills, a public policy professor at the University of Michigan, says once some voters get used to casting their ballot before election day, many stick with it.

"The other thing I've noticed is that once people vote absentee, they rarely go back to voting in person. So that's why almost every election cycle, you see the number of people voting absentee increasing, and I expect that to be true for early voting as well," said Hills.

In Southeast Michigan, more than 1 million absentee ballots have been requested across the counties included in the state's regional breakdown. That includes more than 336,000 in Wayne County, 324,000 in Oakland and 181,000 in Macomb.

But with more ballots moving through the system, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel says she also wants voters to have confidence in how those ballots are handled.

"It's a safe and secure process, and no one has ever been able to show otherwise. Do we have a handful of cases that we look at every year where you have somebody who shouldn't have voted cast their ballot, yes, but those cases are so few and far in between," said Nessel.

Nessel says her office is also preparing to respond to reports of voter intimidation, interference or threats against election workers.

"We take those complaints immediately, and sometimes we work with local law enforcement to address that issue, or we'll just work directly with the clerk's office," said Nessel.

Nessel says her office has been working with state agencies, local governments, law enforcement and clerks to plan for different scenarios through tabletop exercises.

"It's not just that we do those tabletop exercises for any situation that could present itself with the Secretary of State's office and the Governor's Office and the Michigan State Police, but we do that with municipalities as well," said Nessel.

Those absentee numbers will continue to change as more ballots are returned in the weeks leading up to Election Day.