elections

County won't certify Detroit mayoral primary results
Joe Guillen, Marlon A. Walker and Matt Helms, Detroit Free Press
August 21, 2013
No matter what the outcome, the same 2 candidates will face one another in a
November runoff.

Story Highlights

  The job the candidates seek has virtually no power these days because a
state emergency manager is running the city
  Turnout in the non-partisan primary was estimated at 12% to 17% of eligible
voters
  The present mayor, first elected in May 2009, decided not to run again

DETROIT — A state election panel will have to decide who really came in first in
this city's August primary after Wayne County election officials Tuesday refused
to certify new election results that show Wayne County's sheriff winning over the
former CEO of Detroit Medical Center.

The ballot tally flip was the result of the county board questioning the validity of
about 20,000 write-in votes not recorded at polling locations using hash marks,
which would cause the result of the Aug. 6 non-partisan primary to change —
with Benny Napoleon, the Wayne County sheriff, receiving more votes than write-
in candidate Mike Duggan, also a former Wayne County prosecutor. Fourteen
candidates were on the ballot.

STORY: Detroit mayor will not seek re-election
STORY: Wife of ex-mayor loses lease on home

At the end of a heated, eight-hour meeting, Duggan and Napoleon still will face
each other in the Nov. 6 election. But Napoleon was hinting that vote-counting
shenanigans had cost him the primary win and demanding federal oversight for
the general election. Duggan was alleging that "dirty tricks" were afoot to deprive
him of 46% of the votes initially included in his tally.

Both political camps now are looking beyond Michigan's largest city for
clarification and fired off statements Tuesday that support what many observers
have been predicting — that the mud will fly before November for a job that has
become largely ceremonial because of Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder's appointment
of Kevyn Orr as emergency manager for the city seeking bankruptcy protection.
Mayor Dave Bing, first elected in May 2009 to replace Kwame Kilpatrick who
resigned after pleading guilty to felony charges, decided not to run again.

Even before Tuesday's meeting, the race had been controversial: Duggan
moved from the suburb of Livonia, Mich., to run for mayor, but courts said he
had submitted petitions to run for office two weeks before he met the one-year
residency requirement. So he was forced to mount a write-in campaign or scrap
his bid for office.

The county board was split on whether to certify Detroit mayoral election
numbers after votes were called into question because of Detroit election
workers' errors.

"The county canvassing board was only required in June to certify local
elections," said Carol Larkin, Wayne County Board of Canvassers chairwoman.
"There's very little precedent for us to act on. But there were numerical
discrepancies ... that need to be reconciled. And the state will do that."

The Board of State Canvassers will have up to 10 days to vote to certify the Aug.
6 primary election results. The four-member board has two Republicans, Colleen
Pero and Norman Shinkle, and two Democrats, Julie Matuzak and Jeannette
Bradshaw.

County officials listed 69,933 votes in the city's Aug. 6 election. Without the
questionable votes, Napoleon would have 28,391 votes and Duggan would have
23,970 votes in the mayoral primary. Unofficial numbers released Aug. 6 showed
Duggan with 44,395 and Napoleon with 28,352. Turnout was low with an
estimated 12% to 17% of those eligible casting their votes.

“Nothing in the law says these ballots — if properly cast — should, as a result of
an error in tallying, not ultimately be counted.”
— Jocelyn Benson, Wayne State University Law School

If Duggan wins in November, when a higher voter turnout is expected, he would
be the first white mayor in four decades of the city of 700,000 that is now more
than 80% black.

Counters for the Wayne County board were unsure of what to do with votes that
did not use a method known as "hash-marking," where votes are counted
individually on poll books. The 20,000 votes at issue were entered into the books
with just the numerical number of votes instead of hash marks.

The proper way for poll workers to keep track of write-in votes is shown in a
manual the state provided county boards of canvassers in July 2010. The
manual shows a sample poll book with hash marks corresponding to each vote
cast for a declared write-in candidate. The hash marks then are added up for
each declared write-in candidate and a total is to be recorded in each poll book.

The manual does not give instructions if hash marks are not recorded in the poll
books. However, the manual says any errors discovered in election records
during a canvass must be corrected.

"If any of the records are found to be incomplete or to contain errors other than
minor omissions, spelling errors or obvious mathematical mistakes, the election
inspectors who were responsible for completing the records must be summoned
to the canvass to correct the documents," the state manual says.

Melvin "Butch" Hollowell, a lawyer for the Duggan campaign, said lawyers for
Wayne County Clerk Cathy Garrett and the board of canvassers advised the
board to count only ballot books that had tallies marked with hash marks —
vertical slashes of four with a horizontal line to mark five — instead of whole
numbers. Ballot book tallies had variations for totals, some marked with hashes,
some with whole numbers, and some with combinations of the two.

Jocelyn Benson, interim dean of the Wayne State University Law School, said no
language in state law requires the recording of hash marks for write-in votes to
be counted.

“A citizen's vote is the cornerstone of democracy, and people should be able to
put their faith in their ballot.”
— Benny Napoleon, Wayne County sheriff

"Nothing in the law says these ballots — if properly cast — should, as a result of
an error in tallying, not ultimately be counted," she said.

Further, the Michigan Supreme Court has ruled that a vote for a write-in
candidate should count when the voter's intent is clear...