New Voting Machines Won’t Solve All Detroit Election Issues

DETROIT, MI — Voters will use new voting machines in 2017 city elections after widespread problems were reported with aging equipment during last month’s presidential election. The announcement comes as more problems have been reported with the election process in Detroit, including a delay of several days before nearly 100 poll books were delivered to Wayne County election officials.

In a memo to State Elections Director Chris Thomas, Wayne County election official Jennifer Redmond said poll books from 95 of the city’s 662 precincts hadn’t been delivered when the official canvass began on Nov. 9. Five of the poll books, which contain the names of voters who cast ballots in the Nov. 8 election, still are missing, and another 101 poll books weren’t delivered in sealed envelopes, as required by law.

The new machines will address some but not all of the wide-ranging problems with the election. One of the most glaring problems was in Precinct 152, where the poll book listed 307 voters, but only 52 ballots were found in the sealed ballot box. In most cases where errors were discovered, there were more votes than voters — a problem reported in about a third of the precincts. Eight-seven machines reportedly broke on Election Day.

It’s unclear exactly how many over-votes were recorded because a recount requested by Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein was halted before it could be completed. But of the ballots that had been retallied, there were 388 more votes than there should have been. The overcount represented 0.16 percent of Detroit’s 248,000 ballots. Detroit voters backed Clinton over Trump by a margin of 95 percent to 3 percent.

See Also

• More Votes than Voters in 37 Percent of Detroit Precincts: Report
• After Michigan Recount Scuttled, Jill Stein to Get Huge Refund
• Recount Michigan: 5 Things We Learned About Duct Tape, Uncounted Ballots, Wilson Pickett, Eric Clapton and the 1 Percent
• Michigan Vote Recount: Half of Detroit Ballots May Not Qualify
• Swing State Hacking Fears Fuel Recount Talk

The problems outlined in Redmond’s memo were “somewhat shocking,” Thomas told the Detroit Free Press. Thomas and his staff planned to query Detroit election officials to find out what went wrong and how they can help improve the integrity of future elections.

Though the aging machines were blamed for many of the problems encountered in Detroit, human error remains a problem, election officials said.

Detroit City Clerk Janice Winfrey told the Free Press the city has had trouble recruiting poll workers willing to put in 15- to 18-hour days for pay of $150, so the task falls to older residents. The average poll worker in Detroit is 68.

“I’m not happy with how Detroit handled this election at all,” Krista Hartounian, chairwoman of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers, told The Detroit News. The board she chairs certifies election results.

The new voting machines will be costly. The state has $30 million in federal funds from the 2002 Help America Vote Act, according to Fred Woodhams, a spokesman for the Michigan Secretary of State’s Office, but Thomas estimated it could cost up to $50 million to replace them statewide.

Local communities will be asked to kick in a portion of the costs, between $1,000 to $2,000 per precinct, Thomas said. That could cost Detroit about $1 million. The voting machines used in last month’s election were updated in 2004 and 2005, and those using optical scanning devices are obsolete, Thomas said.

“Local communities will have ample time to prepare and budget for that,” Woodhams told The Detroit News. “Some may be ready before others, but we want to have new machines in place for August 2018, which is really the next statewide election.”

Detroit City Clerk Janice Winfrey told the Free Press the city had planned to replace the decade-old voting machines, but the state didn’t allocate any money to offset the costs.

“We had the rollout (of new machines) in our budget,” Winfrey said. “No money was appropriated by the state. We are hopeful that we will have machines in 2017, and I suggest to you that tomorrow there will be a plan rolled out for those machines. If not, we’re going to do like we always do in this raggedy city. We’re going to make it work.”

The problems might have gone unnoticed if not for Stein’s request for a recount. In a rally Saturday outside the Cobo Center, she called Michigan’s handling of the election a “hot mess.”

Photo by Jared and Corin via Flickr Commons