Records: Too many votes in 37% of Detroits precincts

[MichMan]

Source: Detroit News

Voting machines in more than one-third of all Detroit precincts registered more votes than they should have during last months presidential election, according to Wayne County records prepared at the request of The Detroit News.

Detailed reports from the office of Wayne County Clerk Cathy Garrett show optical scanners at 248 of the citys 662 precincts, or 37 percent, tabulated more ballots than the number of voters tallied by workers in the poll books. Voting irregularities in Detroit have spurred plans for an audit by Michigan Secretary of State Ruth Johnsons office, Elections Director Chris Thomas said Monday.

The Detroit precincts are among those that couldnt be counted during a statewide presidential recount that began last week and ended Friday following a decision by the Michigan Supreme Court. Democrat Hillary Clinton overwhelmingly prevailed in Detroit and Wayne County. But Republican President-elect Donald Trump won Michigan by 10,704 votes or 47.5 percent to 47.3 percent.

Overall, state records show 10.6 percent of the precincts in the 22 counties that began the retabulation process couldnt be recounted because of state law that bars recounts for unbalanced precincts or ones with broken seals. The problems were the worst in Detroit, where discrepancies meant officials couldnt recount votes in 392 precincts, or nearly 60 percent. And two-thirds of those precincts had too many votes.

Read more: http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2016/12/12/records-many-votes-detroits-precincts/95363314/

[Fast Walker 52]

1. and of course the right will go nuts over this because the black vote there

but the article doesn't say how much the vote is off, or which way it went. Maybe there were illegal Trump votes there?

[forthemiddle]

4. Why wouldn't they go nuts?

Wouldn't we be going nuts if this was Waukesha county in Wisconsin? Or any other precinct that went 95 % Trump?

This is unacceptable, no matter where it happens.

As for why they wouldn't recount them, apparently the law that says they can't is from 1954, so maybe it's time to update that law.

[Fast Walker 52]

38. True. I just hope it's not padded votes for HRC, and if so hopefully it's only small differences

nothing big

[Yo_Mama]

8. These were extremely strong precincts for Clinton.

We'll have to see the outcome, but it is not unreasonable for state authorities to investigate, and if these precincts had gone strongly for Trump, we would be screaming about it.

[stillcool]

2. wonder how that happens

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

6. Machines had a higher number than the poll workers' tally.

"... optical scanners at 248 of the citys 662 precincts, or 37 percent, tabulated more ballots than the number of voters tallied by workers ..."

Machines probably counted the number of ballots fed to them. Poll workers are human, easily distracted, bored by tedium, or just forgot.

Sometimes, I look at a pill bottle and wonder if I took that pill this morning or not.

No surprise that there are discrepancies. It shouldn't be a reason to nullify a recount.

[MichMan]

13. Yet many are demanding hand counts as the standard

If poll workers are human, easily distracted, bored by tedium or forgetful, why do so many advocate for hand counted ballots instead of machines?

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

15. Hand-recounts are done by multiple workers

and usually observed (and obstructed, apparently) by partisan representatives.

So, less boredom, more eyes.

[former9thward]

24. I have appointed to an election audit committee for my county in AZ for years.

We randomly select precincts after the election to hand count (which we do). So far the machines have never been wrong -- even once.

[brush]

26. With hand counts there's more than one person doing it. Both sides have a representative

Of all the places, Detroit is the last place that needed to cheat for Hillary as she was going to win by a huge margin.

Something is sketchy there. Sounds like dirty tricks tampering to invalid sure Dem votes.

[MichMan]

32. I believe it was sloppiness and poor training not malfeasance

If anything, extra votes were recorded for Hillary

[brush]

33. Could be, but there was no need to add Clinton votes. She was going to win anyway

I still say something sounds shady.

[stillcool]

16. In that case

It would be an insignificant amount....and a very normal occurrence. There's that "normal" word again.

[Qutzupalotl]

10. If the ballots are re-fed due to problems

such as not registering a vote for president, the counts will be off. A recount would show this, but that's illegal under a 1954 state law.

[MichMan]

11. These issues were ignored election night

Detroit election staff knew the counts didn't match the night of the election and certified them anyway. They need to be held accountable.

Worrying about why they weren't included in a recount isn't the important issue here. Had there been no recount the totals still would have been recorded wrong

[Qutzupalotl]

14. If the machines had worked correctly

the discrepancies wouldn't exist. But machines in Detroit broke down repeatedly.

The issue is that the recount of these mismatched precincts can't be done at all under state law. That law needs to be repealed.

[MichMan]

17. So erroneous vote totals are to be ignored unless there is a recount?

The rest of the state uses the same machines and they didn't nearly have the same amount of problems. Multiple other precincts across the state indicated that when these issues did occur they were either reconciled or explained that night before the totals were certified. In Detroit this was not done.

Apparently the election workers were poorly trained, poorly supervised, or thought it was "close enough" and didn't care. This is the responsibility of the local elected officials. Hopefully the state investigation will determine what failed.

[Qutzupalotl]

18. Vote totals cannot be verified without a recount.

If you're in Michigan, I hope you'll push for a repeal of that crazy law.

[MichMan]

20. They should be verified the night of the election, not only when there is a recount

They are supposed to be verified the night of the election when the number of votes matches the number of voters. The Board of Canvassers then certified those totals.

In these cases, the totals were submitted incorrectly and still certified.

[Qutzupalotl]

25. And there is no recourse,

thus the need to change the law.

[think]

3. This should be the reason for a recount not the reason to avoid one.....

[forthemiddle]

5. The law that states they can't be recounted

Apparently was written in the 1950's so maybe now is the time to change it before the next election.

[MichMan]

21. I think that law had good intentions originally

The 1954 law needs to be revisited for sure. It appears that the original intent was to not allow situations where "extra" ballots were somehow inserted.

Imagine a situation where 800 people signed in to vote, but there were hundreds of "extra" ballots in the box marked for Trump. Are you saying during a recount, that those should all be counted giving him more votes than voters?

[MichMan]

7. Isnt getting the count right on election night most important?

I am much more concerned on getting the count right the first time than what happens during a recount

Happy to see the state is investigating, so this doesn't happen again.

[ucrdem]

9. They don't seem to be in any particular hurry.

And they weren't exactly eager to comply with a legitimate recount request from a candidate on the ballot.

[Abouttime]

12. Remember, this election was stolen

The machines might have been tampered with to record one trump vote on every ballot, this needs to be looked into.

[Blanks]

28. Cross-check may be to blame...

Maybe they took names away after they'd voted.

[texasmomof3]

30. With HRC winning 95% of the vote there not likely. nt

[brush]

34. Hillary certain to win 95%, seems like a prime target to make sure those votes weren't counted

[MichMan]

35. They were all counted the first time

In fact some were counted twice

[ffr]

22. From what I read and what said in the video report, cavalier attitude seems to sum up the concern

Meh, no big deal. We'll look into it before next election.

As far as the 3 hour wait for voters in lines, we're looking into combining precincts.

Combining precincts? Wouldn't you want to expand the number of precincts?

[MichMan]

23. I agree

If I had to guess it was due to poor training and/or supervision by the Detroit elected officials. Since Hillary was expected to win and Detroit votes 95% blue, the election staff probably figured it didn't matter and they just wanted to go home. A few extra votes didn't really matter anyway. No one ever expected a recount.

(Note: pure conjecture on my part, do not know what happened.)

[Sunlei]

27. 47.5 to 47.3, much closer. were provisional votes ever counted? & what about the 90k 'blank ballots?

were they really blank? or did the tabulator machines 'count' the 'blanks' twice?

[Blanks]

29. The provisional ballots are key...

That's the message that everyone should stay on.

[Sunlei]

31. I can't even find a state count of how many provisional votes are pending, thought its about 50,000?

[Uponthegears]

36. First a confession

I hold a bias against tabulation errors being blamed for electoral outcomes. (This is largely because I am still . . . fine, I'll use the expression . . . butt-hurt from 2000 when I spent months begging the DNC to put some money behind fighting for the 10's of 1000's of convicted felons who were wrongfully stripped of their right to vote by the Choicepoint/Katherine Harris cabal but were more than happy to throw money at a relatively small number of butterfly ballot discrepancies in South Florida.)

STILL, I am perplexed by why so many people want to make excuses for the discrepencies in Detroit. It's like a lot of people have just accepted the RIGHT WING narrative that because this happened in urban neighborhoods it shows Hillary received votes from "imaginary" voters.

Friends, it wasn't Hillary who outperformed the polls in these neighborhoods. She supposedly "underperformed" in urban communities.

So who was it that outperformed the polls in Detroit? Who got more votes than they "should" have got?

Was it an orange orangutan?

Well yes it was.

[MichMan]

37. Trump received 3 % of the votes

Last edited Tue Dec 13, 2016, 06:58 PM - Edit history (1)

I think we all agree that elections need to be fair, voter suppression is wrong and votes need to counted fairly regardless of who benefits. Being I have lived in Michigan my entire life, this is embarrassing and needs to be addressed.

If this had occurred in bright red districts, there would be an uproar about cheating etc. Most people in this case believe that it was caused by sloppiness and not an attempts to cheat . The only people who do think it was done intentionally are avid RW.