More Votes Than Voters in 37 Percent of Detroit Precincts: Report

DETROIT, MI — More votes than voters were counted in more than one-third of Detroit’s precincts in the Nov. 8, 2016, presidential election, according to records from the Wayne County Clerk’s Office.

The report, prepared for The Detroit News, showed optical scanners registered more ballots than names in the poll books at 248 of the city’s 662 precincts, or 37 percent. Voting irregularities in Detroit have prompted Secretary of State Ruth Johnson to call for an audit.

Those precincts were among those that couldn’t be counted in the recent recount that had been requested by Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein. U.S. District Judge Mark Goldsmith last week halted the recount of Michigan’s 4.8 million ballots, and the Michigan Supreme Court said Friday it wouldn’t hear an appeal of a Michigan Court of Appeals decision that triggered Goldsmith’s decision.

Overall, about 10.6 precincts in the counties that had begun the recount were tossed out of the retabulation process because of discrepancies between poll books and ballots cast or because seals on ballot boxes had been broken or were improper.

Last week, Michigan state senators asked for an investigation into the irregularities in Detroit. In one precinct, a ballot box contained 50 ballots, but 306 voters were listed in the poll book, an observer for President-elect Donald Trump said.

Krista Haroutunian, chairwoman of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers, said there have always been “small problems to some degree” in Detroit, but the extent of the problem in this recently ended election cycle “isn’t normal.”

Trump won Michigan by 10,704 votes and collected the state’s 16 electoral votes. The Electoral College meets Dec. 19.

To read the full report, go to The Detroit News.

Photo by Lance Fisher via Flickr Commons