Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Michigan’s free newsletter here.

A judge ruled Tuesday that 37 untabulated ballots in Hamtramck’s disputed municipal election should not be counted, affirming Adam Alharbi’s controversial and narrow victory in the race for mayor.

However, the decision is likely only the starting gun for a legal race against the clock before the city’s new mayor is sworn in at the beginning of January.

In her written decision Tuesday, Judge Patricia Perez Fresard of the Third Judicial Circuit of Michigan said that the Wayne County Board of Canvassers “exercised its discretion” when declining to count the 37 ballots after the city clerk “failed to comply with mandatory requirements imposed to protect the integrity of ballots.”

Fresard had initially ordered the parties to meet to see if they could come to a resolution. That failed, attorneys said, leading to just over 20 minutes of courtroom debate Tuesday, primarily between lawyers for Alharbi and his opponent in the mayoral race, City Council member Muhith Mahmood, who finished 11 votes behind.

Mark Brewer, representing Mahmood as well as the 37 disenfranchised voters, said that to not count the votes would be to violate a number of election-related constitutional protections. Nabih Ayad, representing Alharbi, argued that there was “absolutely no viable path” to count the ballots, and that doing so would effectively disenfranchise other voters.

“The arguments of both counsel are that the court should protect voter rights,” Fresard said Tuesday morning at the end of the hearing. “In some circumstances, it’s very difficult to protect the rights of every single individual voter.”

The dispute has brought weeks of uncertainty to Hamtramck and its nearly 28,000 residents. It all started when, due to human error, 37 absentee ballots were left in their envelopes and went uncounted on election night. Election officials discovered them a few days later and immediately delivered them to Wayne County officials.

But at some point between the end of election night and when the ballots were discovered, a number of unauthorized city officials had walked into the office where the ballots had been, breaking the chain of custody. That led county officials to question whether they should be counted, and the Wayne County Board of Canvassers ultimately deadlocked on whether to include them in the final tally. That meant that the ballots would not be counted, and Alharbi was certified as the winner by just six votes; a recount later determined his actual winning margin was 11 votes.

Mahmood then sued to have the 37 mishandled ballots counted. Brewer argued Tuesday that, otherwise, the 37 unnamed voters’ constitutional right to vote was being invalidated.

“Plaintiffs have no other remedy, other than to have their votes counted, as is their right,” he told the court. Allowing those voters to cast a new ballot would also be sufficient, he said.

But Fresard disagreed. Michigan law “does not support … that the City had a clear legal duty to tabulate the 37 votes,” she wrote. State law requires absentee votes to be tabulated according to the law, she wrote, but the board has the discretion to not count ballots it has questions about.

Brewer, in an email before the decision came down Tuesday, said he would be appealing “immediately” to the Michigan Court of Appeals “and on to the Michigan Supreme Court if necessary.”

Tuesday evening, he confirmed they had already appealed.

Hamtramck has been embroiled in election-related scandals for much of 2025. City Clerk Rana Faraj was put on leave shortly after the election, which Amer Ghalib, the city’s outgoing mayor, said was partially because her office mishandled the 37 ballots. Earlier this month, Faraj sued the city and several of its officials, alleging she was being retaliated against for reporting election fraud.

Two City Council members were charged in August with forging signatures on absentee ballots during the 2023 council race. Four others, including two other council members and an incoming council member, were named in an April document from Attorney General Dana Nessel seeking a special prosecutor for the case. No one else has been charged.

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

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization covering local election integrity and voting access. Sign up for their newsletters here.