Delay in reporting election results in Detroit, Wayne and Macomb counties raises concerns

Detroit and Wayne and Macomb counties lagged behind the rest of the state in reporting the results of Tuesday's primary, raising concerns that a similar performance in the Nov. 5 general election could fuel conspiracy theories about election integrity.

State lawmakers recently enacted legislation allowing clerks to begin counting absentee ballots up to a week before the polls close at 8 p.m. on Election Day. Nevertheless, Wayne, Macomb — and especially Detroit — lagged behind most of the state when it came to posting election results.

"It would have been great to have known the results earlier," said Sam Riddle, an adviser to Mary Waters, who was running for the Democratic nomination in the 13th Congressional District. "You would have thought, given the low turnout — the abysmally low turnout — that we could have had earlier results.

"I don’t understand what happens there," Riddle added, "but I don’t work in the clerk’s office."

As of 1:15 a.m. Wednesday, Detroit posted partial vote totals and the clerk's elections website listed 0% for "precincts fully reporting." Vote totals had not been updated since 10:30 p.m. Tuesday.

Also around 1:15 a.m., Wayne County, which includes Detroit, posted vote totals for only 2% of its precincts. Macomb County posted vote totals for only 39% of its precincts.

At about the same time, Oakland County reported results from nearly 94% of its precincts, Kent County reported results from 85% of its precincts and Genesee County reported results from 78% of its precincts.

Wayne County Commissioner Jonathan Kinloch, a former member of the county's board of canvassers, which review elections results, said he was concerned about the delay in posting vote totals.

“The whole world’s going to be watching us in November,” Kinloch said.

Michigan has been in the national spotlight since 2016, when Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton here by about 11,000 votes. Delays in reporting of vote totals, especially in Detroit, left the outcome of the election in doubt until the day after the election. In 2020, after President Joe Biden beat Trump in Michigan by more than 150,000 votes, Trump used the delay in reporting vote totals to allege that the election was rigged.

"Donald Trump has never stopped bashing and insulting Detroit's election processes and questioning the integrity of it," Kinloch said. "With all that, we absolutely understand what’s at stake and I have personally been in touch with the elections department and they understand what kind of a microscope they’re going to be under — not just from here, but nationally and, on a broader note, internationally. Because the world is watching us."

Daniel Baxter, a top aide to Detroit City Clerk Janice Winfrey, told the Free Press at 2:30 a.m. Wednesday that two factors delayed the posting of vote totals for Detroit: An unexpectedly large number of absentee ballots that arrived on Election Day and a computer glitch.

"Tuesday was an unusual day for a primary," Baxter said. "Nearly 10,000 returned their (absentee) ballots today."

He said that was nearly double the number of absentee ballots that typically arrive on Election Day.

It appears the Detroit totals were not posted until about 7:30 a.m. Wednesday. Turnout in Detroit was about 16% — or less than a third of the expected turnout for the Nov. 5 General Election.

Still, Baxter said, the Detroit clerk will bring on additional staff to handle the heavier load.

"We're not overly concerned at all," he said, adding that he was "fully confident" Detroit would report results much faster in November.

Dorian Tyus, a spokesman for Wayne County Clerk Cathy Garrett, said the delay in posting information from the local municipalities to the county clerk's website was "in part, due to a technical issue. We had a firewall issue within our IT and due to the firewall issue, our municipalities could not transmit the data via electronic means."

He said the townships and cities had to drop off their results at the county clerk's office in downtown Detroit, creating a delay in getting the information up on the county's system and reported out to the public.

Tyus said an audit and assessment of what happened will be done, though he did not know how long that would take. He said officials want to take the correct steps to make sure this doesn't happen again in November.

"We do have backup processes in place, which (were) executed yesterday, to be able to ensure that the results are still coming in and they're accurate and complete," Tyus said. "It's just not as timely due to the fact we could not transmit it via the internet."

Macomb County Clerk Anthony Forlini said results aren't transmitted electronically because tabulator modems that aren't certified can't be used. He said his office gets computer sticks with the information from the individual communities.

He said "it makes it look like our results are getting in later than they should. ... It makes it look like others are more organized, which, that's not the case," Forlini said, adding that the information just can't be transmitted as quickly.

Forlini said he worked with Sheriff Anthony Wickersham during this election and the prior one to pick up the sticks with data from communities that were willing to partner with them. A sheriff's deputy and a clerk's employee in a squad car picked up the sticks in a secure process. Forlini said four squad cars were out Tuesday in eight to 10 communities that participated.

Forlini said his office had its first results coming in about 9:30 p.m. Tuesday "and actually they did a decent job with those that participated. ... We did get results posted up fairly early compared to the past" through the partnership.

Though Oakland County may have posted more of its results online sooner, Forlini said Macomb County "was at 100% before Oakland County was."

More:Find all 2024 Michigan primary election results here

Forlini said Clinton Township had a problem with absentee voter ballots which had to be resolved. He said there's a "lot of checks and balances in the whole system, so everyone's cross-checking, making sure everything's right."

"We're better this time than we were last time," Forlini said, adding that "we need to do a better job in the fall."

Angela Benander, spokeswoman for Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, said of Detroit and Wayne County: "We believe the city and the county followed proper procedures in handling the unfortunate logistical challenges on Tuesday that prevented unofficial results from being reported more quickly. Clerks and their teams plan for these challenges, put backup systems in place, and quickly shift to those backup systems when necessary."

She said state election officials "will continue to work with local officials to identify additional efficiencies to speed up the process, but we will never do so at the expense of making sure the unofficial count is accurate."

Kinloch, the former Wayne County elections official, said he was not concerned about the Detroit and Wayne county clerks' performances in the primary. He said new technology and equipment was partly to blame for the delay in reporting vote totals.

“This was a great test run," Kinloch said. "Hopefully, they took a lot of notes.”

Free Press staff writer Christina Hall contributed to this article.

M.L. Elrick is a Pulitzer Prize- and Emmy Award-winning investigative reporter and host of the ML's Soul of Detroit podcast. Contact him at mlelrick@freepress.com or follow him on X at @elrick, Facebook at ML Elrick and Instagram at ml_elrick.