By Nathan Layne
WARREN, Michigan (Reuters) -Officers within the U.S. battleground state of Michigan mentioned they fear that the Democratic-leaning metropolis of Warren might lag behind the remainder of the state in reporting the outcomes of Tuesday’s presidential election, elevating early doubts concerning the state’s vote depend.
Warren, not like Detroit and most different cities in Michigan, opted to not benefit from modifications enacted in a 2022 state legislation permitting for as much as eight days of preprocessing of absentee ballots. As a substitute, town of 135,000 folks will wait till Election Day to confirm and tabulate greater than 20,000 mail-in ballots.
The potential delay from Warren has fearful some Democratic leaders that it might depart the outcomes showing artificially excessive for Republican Donald Trump on Tuesday night, and that the previous president would search to take advantage of the state of affairs by falsely declaring victory within the state earlier than all votes have been in.
“If the state is close at all and we don’t have returns from Warren, which is our third-largest city, it’s going to create all kinds of concerns,” mentioned Mark Brewer, an lawyer and the previous chair of the Michigan Democratic Occasion. “It’s very, very worrisome.”
The Trump marketing campaign and the Republican Nationwide Committee didn’t straight tackle questions on Warren or Trump’s plans to problem the outcomes. In a press release, Victoria LaCivita, the Trump marketing campaign’s Michigan spokesperson, criticized Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris’ report and expressed confidence that Trump would defeat her within the state.
Opinion polls present a good race between Harris and Trump in Michigan and different battleground states.
The choice to not preprocess absentee ballots was made by Warren Metropolis Clerk Sonja Buffa, a nonpartisan elected official. She mentioned in a press launch that she believed stretching out the method over a number of days was inefficient and raised the danger of data on the election being leaked.
State and native officers lobbied Buffa to go for preprocessing, which was established as an choice for clerks however not mandated by the brand new legislation. Buffa, who has greater than 20 years of expertise overseeing elections, didn’t bend.
Final week Buffa requested the Warren Metropolis Council to approve $140,000 to buy a fifth high-speed tabulator to assist pace up poll processing, an indication she wished to ship outcomes shortly. She later rescinded that request and mentioned she wished to as a substitute hire one for $40,000.
Buffa didn’t reply to requests for remark. Reuters couldn’t set up whether or not she had been capable of hire the tabulator or must make do with the 4 already within the metropolis’s possession.
As of Friday, 27,480 absentee ballots had been requested in Warren and 20,437 returned, in accordance with the Michigan Secretary of State’s web site. In 2020 Democratic President Joe Biden beat Trump in Warren with about 55% of the vote.
In Michigan elections are administered by metropolis and city clerks who report their outcomes to the county. For Buffa, which means delivering the data from all her precincts through reminiscence sticks to Anthony Forlini, Macomb County’s clerk.
Forlini, who’s a Republican, mentioned in an interview that he was assured Buffa might course of her absentee ballots in a well timed method, however was fearful she would maintain on to her reminiscence sticks till the morning after Election Day, as she did through the August main. In contrast to the opposite clerks in Macomb, Buffa prefers to show them in when all her election paperwork is completed, a course of that takes hours, Forlini mentioned.
Buffa has not informed Forlini or Warren metropolis council members that she’s going to prioritize supply of the sticks on Tuesday.
“We understand that she, the clerk, is not planning on releasing those sticks until she has all her paperwork done,” mentioned Warren Metropolis Council Secretary Mindy Moore, one other nonpartisan elected official. “They could be waiting for us – the whole world.”
Detroit, in distinction, began preprocessing its absentee ballots on Monday at a conference corridor downtown. Every day tons of of election staff have been working by way of about 11,000 ballots, with a aim of leaving solely 10,000 mail-in ballots for town to course of on Election Day.
If all goes in accordance with plan, Detroit hopes to avert the sort of delay that led to chaos in 2020, when Trump supporters descended on the conference corridor and pounded on home windows demanding that the absentee poll counting be stopped.
Chris Thomas, a former Michigan elections director who’s working as an adviser to Detroit’s clerk, mentioned he was fearful about how shortly Warren might ship its outcomes.
“The track record of large jurisdictions counting large volumes of absentee ballots in a compressed, highly stressed environment is not good,” Thomas mentioned. “It’s possible (Warren) will be one of the later, one of the last ones in.”
