2016 Michigan Election Results: Trump vs. Clinton, Metro Detroit Races

(Originally posted on Nov. 8, 2016) Updated at 10:41 a.m.: Scroll through the story for updated results from Tuesday's presidential election.

Chaos reigned at some polls in Detroit, one of three Michigan that received special poll monitors from the Justice Department to watch for voter intimidation and fraud. At one precinct on the city’s West Side voters who wanted to cast their ballots before they went to work waited nearly two hours because voting machines malfunctioned, so they had to stow their marked ballots in a box.

Michigan has been at the center of the presidential race as one of a handful of battleground states that give Trump a path to victory, and it’s also been at the center of preemptive lawsuits filed by the Democratic National Committee and Michigan Republican Party to stop voter intimidation.

• SEE ALSO: Full Presidential Election Results As They Come In

At the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, 5050 St. Antoine St., Detroit, a poll worker told Patch intimidation has been subtle at that polling place.

“We had a fool cussing and (he) asked me, ‘You got guns out here?’ I said ‘Yeah.’ He was a racist and looking for trouble. That's the intimidation. I politely told him I was going to have a Vietnam flashback on him if he didn't stop," the poll worker said, nodding to his "Ranger" hat. “I call this my crazy hat. People usually know not to start anything with me when I wear this hat. I jumped out of a perfectly good helicopter in Vietnam like I was jumping out of bed. You don't mess with me. He called the police and there were four cop cars out here.”

Arab Americans Report Intimidation

Reports of voter intimidation directed at Arab Americans have been made on social media and news sites. The Ingham County elections clerk reported that a man in East Lansing attempted to keep two hijab-wearing women from casting ballots at their local polling place Tuesday morning, Mother Jones reported.

In an email to Mother Jones, voter Ron Fox described what happened:

I observed a man just outside the door to the polling place. He pulled two women wearing Hijabs out of line ahead of me. When I came level to him, he was examining their voter registration cards and appeared to be attempting to direct them to another polling place. He seemed polite but I did not like that he’d singled out those two women...When I finished voting, there were two polling officials that were asking him to leave. He was refusing. He then entered the polling place, presumably to attempt to obtain permission to remain.

There were other problems as well.

Berkley City Clerk Annette Boucher told voters they can't vote without an identification card — an issue that also surfaced in Lansing, according to ProPublica's Electionland project. What Michigan law actually states is voters who don't have a voter identification can sign an affidavit at the polls and go ahead and vote.

Problems were also reported for Michigan State University voters.

Fight at the Polls

An incident around 10 a.m. in Michigan’s Ypsilanti Township shows how emotionally fraught the election has left many Americans. A fight broke out between two women who were arguing the question Americans are answering — Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump? — and ended with one them on the ground after a man allegedly stepped in and shoved her, according to media reports.

“A male subject interjected himself into the argument, ended up pushing down one of the females and then more people started getting involved in this back and forth verbal altercation," Washtenaw County Sheriff's Office spokesman Derrick Jackson told the Detroit Free Press. “It all began with them arguing back and forth about their particular candidate.”

A video posted on YouTube showed a half dozen or so people involved in the argument, some of them chanting “black lives matter.”

“It got out of hand,” township resident David Irvin told MLive.com. “I thought it was really rather embarrassing.”

Voter Intimidation Google Spikes

Pro Publica’s Electionland project reported a spike that was five times higher than the national average for Google searches for “voter intimidation.”

Whether voters are being harassed at the polls isn’t clear, but the topic has been hot across the state amid Republican Donald Trump’s “rigged election” claims, and the Justice Department has dispatched 500 poll monitors to about five dozen U.S. communities, including Detroit, Dearborn Heights and Hamtramck, which all have high minority populations.

Long Lines, Machine Malfunctions

Not only are voters standing in long lines, they're also encountering equipment failures and, in Berkley, an election clerk who said voters had to show a voter identification, according to ProPublica's Electionland project. That's not the case in Michigan.

The project also reported the only voting machine in Precinct 16 is repeatedly breaking, and that some voters have been waiting outside in the rain before getting into the building, where they are facing a 45-minute wait.

The Detroit Free Press reported that nearly two hours after the polls opened, no one at the Marcus Garvey Academy Precinct 134 in Detroit’s West Village had been able to cast a ballot due to a problem with voting machines. A technician was on the way, the Free Press said, but some voters had to get to work and put their ballots in a box.

Across the city, a voting machine malfunctioned at Detroit's Precinct 32, located at East English Village Prep. Some voters who registered on the last day it was allowed didn't show up on voting lists.

Voting machines were also down for a few hours Tuesday morning at a precinct at Crescent Academy, an Islamic school in Canton, the Detroit Free Press reported. “To have people eager and ready to vote but can't because of these type of problems is simply outrageous,” Ken Coleman, a spokesman for Democratic congressional candidate Anil Kumar, told the Free Press.

The problem appears to have been corrected, the newspaper said.

What Voters Are Saying

Dearborn has one of the highest concentrations of Arab-American Muslims in the United States — not exactly an enclave for Trump supporters. But it’s also the home of Ford Motor Co., which Trump has singled out in economic plans that would subject automakers to steep tariffs if they move manufacturing operations to other countries, particularly Mexico, where Ford is moving its small car production.

Dearborn resident Lee Jacobsen owns his own auto parts manufacturing company, Jacobsen Industries, which employs about 140 people. He voted, reluctantly, for Trump. “Both candidates are despicable,” he said. “He’s in it for the country. Hillary is in it for herself.”

Trump’s focus on manufacturing tipped the scales for Jacobsen.

“Corporate taxes are close to 40 percent,” he said. “If we can get taxes down to 15 percent like Trump says, then the companies fleeing America will flee back to America. One of my employees is a forklift operator and I told him if taxes go down to 15 percent, then I'll buy a new forklift and he won't have to drive around the clunker anymore.”

In Dearborn, Joumana Ahmed, a 54-year-old mother of four, usually votes Republican. "But not this year," she said.

Next door, in Dearborn Heights, Michigan, a Muslim woman told Patch she wasn’t thrilled with either candidate but voted for Clinton. “Donald (Trump) has not been quiet about his views on immigration,” she said. “How is America great if you get rid of the multicultural people? Blacks, Muslims and Mexicans? There won’t be anything left.”

Dearborn Heights is one of three places in the United States that the Justice Department sent poll monitors to ensure that all Americans, especially in communities with high minority populations, have equal access to the polls. In all, the Justice Department dispatched 500 poll monitors to five dozen U.S. communities, including neighboring Detroit and Hamtramck.

Record Turnout?

Michigan Secretary of State Ruth Johnson said Tuesday could be a record-setting day for voter turnout. Absentee balloting, an option that isn't available to many younger voters without cause, is up this year.

“Historically we have in the mid 60s (percent voter turnout). In 2008, we had 67.5, and in 2012 we had 64.1,” Johnson told WWJ Radio. “This year, our absentees are up 9 percent. Whether that will translate to the polls or not, we’ll find out.”

The record turnout was 73 percent in the 1960 presidential election.

An early indicator of Michiganders' interest in the election — which Johnson calls "the Super Bowl of Democracy" — came last spring, when a record number of voters turned out for the presidential primary.

“It’s not a spectator sport, you need to get out and vote,” she said. “People have given their lives so that we have this wonderful opportunity. It’s a treasure, and we need to take the time to do it. It is an important part of America.”

Our earlier story: Michigan could decide the presidency. The possibility seemed remote a month ago. Doubt it? Just look at the flurry of visits by Democrat Hillary Clinton, Republican Donald Trump and his running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, President Barack Obama, Sarah Palin and Bill Clinton, all among candidates and surrogates who have been spending time in Michigan since Friday.

Michigan matters with its 16 electoral votes, and both candidates hope to carry the state in what has become a scavenger hunt in the race to the 270 electoral votes needed to win Tuesday’s historic, and by all accounts bitter and vitriolic, presidential election. History is on Clinton’s side. Michigan hasn’t backed a Republican for president since 1988, when the first President Bush was elected.

In Michigan and elsewhere across the country, the atmosphere is ripe for anything to happen in an election that civil and voter rights advocates have said is a “perfect storm for voter intimidation.” Americans are voting for the first time in 50 years without the full protections of the Voting Rights Act, and Trump has called on his supporters to be vigilant at polls and watch for voter fraud.

Voter FYI
Polling Hours: 7 a.m.-8 p.m.
Where to vote: Find your precinct here.
Absentee voters: If you haven't submitted you ballot yet, there's still time.

On Monday, the Justice Department said it was sending poll monitors to Detroit, Dearborn Heights and Hamtramck to ensure that minority voters, especially, have equal access to the polls.

Clinton vs. Trump in Michigan

An illustration of how divisive an election that hinges on a handful of swing states is found in legal posturing already under way — a signal that political parties may be laying the groundwork for an election that will be decided by the courts, as it was in 2000, when Democrat Al Gore challenged Republican George W. Bush’s election and didn’t concede until after the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled.

Those consent decrees were issued in response to efforts by the Republican National Committee to the early 1980s to interrogate and intimidate registered voters in mainly African-American precincts in New Jersey, according to the court filing.

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Brandon Dillon, the chairman of the Michigan Democratic Party, accused McDaniel of “suggesting that people should be out monitoring polling places to protect against a fictional voter fraud effort and that’s what’s most concerning here.”

The New Jersey action was filed by the Democratic National Committee, and nearly identical issues were raised in lawsuit by the Michigan Democratic Party against Trump and his campaign in federal court in Detroit Friday. The lawsuit, which also named the Michigan Republican Party as defendant, asked a federal judge to issue a restraining order prohibiting the defendants from interfering with the election. The Michigan Republican Party said the lawsuit is frivolous.

We will be keeping an eye on several other local races.

Oakland County Exec: Barnett vs. Patterson

Clinton is polling well in Oakland County, and that could spell trouble for longtime Republican County Executive L. Brooks Patterson, who is being challenged by Democrat Vicki Barnett, a former Farmington Hills mayor who also served in the state Legislature.

Macomb Drain Commissioner

U.S. Rep. Candice Miller is leaving her job in Congress to come home and campaign in Macomb County for public works commissioner, a job that has responsibility for maintaining the county drainage system and wastewater disposal. Miller is challenging incumbent Anthony Marrocco, a Democrat, in a race that is both expensive and increasingly nasty. The job is lucrative, too. Marrocco makes $111,540 a year as drain commissioner.

Regional Transit Authority Millage

Voters in Macomb, Oakland, Wayne and Washtenaw counties are voting on a levy that would expand regional transit from Detroit to Ann Arbor.

Bishop vs. Shkreli, 8th District

We’re also watching the 8th District congressional race, where first-term incumbent Mike Bishop, R-Rochester, faces a strong challenge by Democrat Suzanna Shkreli of Clarkston. The Cook political report moved the election to “likely Republican” from “solid Republican” after Shkreli quickly raised $400,000 after she was named to replace actress Melissa Gilbert on the ballot. Gilbert, of Howell, abruptly withdrew from the race in May, citing pain from a years-old neck and head injuries.

Undecided? Live Streams and Replays

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