13 Detroit voters disenfranchised in primary because their absentee ballots were mishandled

This article was originally published by Votebeat, a nonprofit news organization covering local election administration and voting access.

Thirteen Detroit voters did not get their ballots counted in Michigan’s hotly contested primary because of an oversight by election officials.

The absentee ballots were delivered to the city clerk’s office before the deadline of 8 p.m. on Election Day, Daniel Baxter, chief of operations for Detroit elections, told the Wayne County Board of Canvassers during its meeting Monday. But the ballots were “left behind” and not taken to the city’s Department of Elections, a necessary step before they are tabulated.

Instead, the ballots were discovered at the clerk’s office the day after the election, Baxter said. They were then sealed and held securely before being delivered to the canvassers Monday, nearly two weeks after Election Day.

The identity of the voters who were disenfranchised remains unknown. None of the races that were on the primary ballot in Detroit were decided by 13 votes or fewer, meaning that the exclusion of the ballots will not affect the outcome of any elections. However, the Aug. 4 election featured several contentious races that voters were eager to weigh in on, such as the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate.

It’s the second time in less than a year that the Wayne County Board of Canvassers, the body that certifies elections in Michigan’s most populous county, has had to decide whether improperly handled ballots could still be considered.

In last year’s municipal elections, the canvassers opted not to count 37 ballots from Hamtramck that were left in their opened envelopes in the city clerk’s office but never tabulated. The concern there was that non-election officials had walked into the clerk’s office while the ballots were there, breaking their chain of custody.

Becki Carmargo, assistant corporate counsel for Wayne County, told canvassers Monday that Detroit’s situation was different. Because the ballots were not delivered to the city’s elections department until after Election Day, Detroit never entered the 13 ballots in question into the Qualified Voter File, the statewide voter database in which absentee ballots are logged before they are counted — meaning they “basically don’t exist” in the eyes of the law. Carmargo advised the board against tabulating the ballots.

“We don’t know that they were received timely,” Carmargo told the board, referring to the fact that ballots have to be returned by 8 p.m. on Election Day.

Detroit City Clerk Janice Winfrey told canvassers the ballots were “absolutely” received before 8 p.m.

Baxter also argued the ballots’ chain of custody was maintained because the ballots were eventually delivered to the elections office by the deputy clerk, who documented the process throughout. He said that adding the ballots to the QVF when they were discovered would have led to their rejection. Officials confirmed that special permission would have to be granted from the state for those ballots to be entered after the deadline.

“I believe that we should … fall on the side of the voter and not penalize them for the error that the department has made,” Baxter continued.

Democrat Richard Preuss, the chair of the board of canvassers, agreed.

“There’s no malice involved,” he said. Although Preuss noted no election was close enough for the 13 ballots to change the results, he still wanted to “make sure that … people are voting and that their faith in the process is still solid moving forward.”

Republican Lisa Capatina, the vice chair of the board, chastised the city for waiting until Monday to turn the ballots over to the county and not properly advocating for the 13 voters in previous meetings.

She said that while she respected the amount of work Detroit has to do during elections, “there is a process that also has to go along to ensure accountability and accuracy for all the voters in Detroit and Wayne County.”

A motion was made to accept the ballots, but it was not seconded. The failed motion meant the ballots won’t be included in the official primary results. The board will meet again on Tuesday to certify those results and send them to the state.

However, advocates for the disenfranchised voters could still try to go to court to get the ballots counted.

Last year’s decision not to count the ballots in Hamtramck set off a nine-month legal battle that was largely resolved just last week, when the Michigan Supreme Court opted not to take up an appeal in the case, meaning the state’s Court of Appeals’ decision that the ballots should be counted will stand. That tabulation, which could happen in as soon as a few weeks, could change the results of a tight mayoral election decided by only 11 votes.

Hayley Harding is a reporter for Votebeat based in Michigan. Contact Hayley at hharding@votebeat.org.

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