DETROIT (WXYZ) — Republican challengers filed suit to try to stop the certification of Detroit’s election results. On Friday a Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Timothy Kenny denied their motion.
Judge Kenny said the plaintiff’s witnesses did not understand the ballot tabulation process, and quote, “No formal challenges were filed. However, sinister, fraudulent motives were ascribed to the process and the City of Detroit. Plaintiffs’ interpretation of events is incorrect and not credible.”
“If there is a silver lining to these court cases it is validation that our election process in Michigan works,” said Chris Thomas, the Senior Advisor to Detroit City Clerk Janice Winfrey.
Thomas says the court recognized the work of election workers with this order. He has a four-decade long career of running elections under the leadership of Republicans and Democrats in Michigan.
“We are not claiming fraud just to claim fraud. I am sorry. That is what Democrats would do,”said Mellissa Carone, who worked at TCF assisting with IT during the election.
Carone signed an affidavit in the suit claiming that she saw ballots counted multiple times.
“Ballots come in batches of 50. I saw them run through the machines 8 to 10 times, sometimes even more,” said Carone.
Thomas says if that happened, there are numerous steps where it would be caught either immediately or by the Board of Canvassers.
“If you put a batch of 50 ballots in 8 times to come in at 400 ballots, that counting board is going to be way off. There is going to be a lot more votes, than there are people in the book. That kind of error, if it occurred, would be instantly caught,” said Thomas.
“Trump warned us about all of this. He said this was all going to happen with these mail in ballots and it all did,” said Carone.
Thomas said he believes the people who submitted affidavits may have good intentions, but did not interpret what they were seeing correctly. He is calling on them to get more involved in future elections. The parties under law are allowed to nominate election inspectors. He says they should undergo training and become partisan election inspectors.
“Get involved. It is hard to come in at the last minute and judge what all these people who have been trained are doing. You really need to step up. Get involved. Come back the next election. Be an inspector,” said Thomas.
This is the third time a judge has decided not to intervene in the election process after Republicans alleged fraud. There are at least two more pending cases in Michigan.
