November 12, 2005
BY JOHN BEBOW and BEN SCHMITT
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITERS
Detroit elections officials lost track of ballots
in nine precincts -- or
almost 3,000 votes -- in Tuesday's election, and did
not count them until two
days after polls closed.
What went wrong:
Nearly 3,000 Detroit votes were lost for two days as
some were taken home by
poll workers, others misplaced. Further, vote totals
failed to add up
correctly when the votes were restored.
What elections it affects:
Adding the newly found votes doesn't appear to
affect the mayoral race. The
effect is unclear, though, on City Council and
school board races.
What comes next:
State Elections chief Chris Thomas launched a probe
Friday, ordering the city
not to touch voting records till he meets with them
today.
State Elections Director Chris Thomas ordered city
officials late Friday to
keep their hands off voting records until he meets
with them today.
Thomas' order came after he learned of the problem
Friday afternoon from the
Free Press, and as city elections officials were
preparing to hold an
emergency meeting with software engineers to try to
resolve ongoing discrepancies in
the vote totals.
The addition of the missing votes did not appear to
alter the result of the
most hotly contested mayoral race in recent memory.
However, it's not entirely
clear what impact the missing votes had on other
races on the city ballot,
including the City Council and the school board.
Thomas said he was "absolutely dismayed" to learn
of the missing votes.
"We cannot believe that in this climate that
Detroit election officials
wouldn't publicly disclose that all of the precincts
were not counted," Thomas
said.
The missing votes raise fresh concerns about how
votes have been secured and
counted under outgoing City Clerk Jackie Currie,
whose absentee ballot
program is under federal investigation.
City elections officials acknowledged that a
wayward poll worker took home
the results from two precincts late Tuesday; and
nonchalantly delivered them to
election headquarters about noon Wednesday.
Elections staffers discovered the
results from seven other precincts inside locked
ballot boxes after a fevered
search.
Detroit Elections Department Director Gloria
Williams insisted Friday it was
completely normal for poll workers to temporarily
lose track of a few
precinct results -- stored in computerized memory
packs -- in a busy election, an
assessment shared by Sean T. Smith, a computer
consultant who oversaw the
tabulation of the votes on hundreds of packs.
Williams and Smith said there was no
way anyone could tamper with the missing packs.
"The results as of election night are completely
unofficial," Williams said,
insisting her office would be ready for the final
vote certification before
the Wayne County Board of Canvassers on Tuesday.
"It's like balancing your
checkbook."
The campaign staffs of both Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick
and unsuccessful
challenger Freman Hendrix expressed deep concern
Friday about the votes.
"Voting is a precious thing and Detroiters need to
feel fully confident that
their vote will be counted and processed
appropriately," said Kilpatrick
spokesman Howard Hughey. "We really hope that the
Secretary of State and county
will get to the bottom of whatever the issue is and
guide this process for
future elections."
Hendrix campaign spokesman Greg Bowens said
supporters were encouraging
Hendrix -- who as of Wednesday morning was down by
some 14,000 votes -- to demand
a recount.
"Right now there are many people who are concerned
about the integrity of
the vote," Bowens said. "We are, too."
Among the discrepancies to be resolved, city
officials concede, are the
final tallies in the mayoral race.
The Thursday count added 2,959 votes to the total
ballots cast. But when the
city updated the totals, Kilpatrick somehow gained
another 4,462 votes, while
Hendrix gained 4,064 votes.
"I've gone over this and I'm not figuring it out,"
Smith, the computer
consultant, said Friday evening after the Free Press
pointed out the discrepancy.
In the mayor's race, the final percentages changed
little once the missing
votes were added. The new vote totals provided to
the Free Press on Friday gave
52.76% of the vote to Kilpatrick. Earlier totals
released by the clerk's
office at 4:51 a.m. Wednesday gave 52.79% of the
vote to Kilpatrick.
The problems began at about 10:30 on election
night, Williams and Smith
acknowledged. Workers at the 720 precincts were to
have removed the palm-sized
memory packs from the ballot tabulation machines
used in each precinct and
delivered them to nine check-in stations across the
city.
The packs were then to be transmitted via modem to
election headquarters on
West Grand Boulevard.
But when a couple of the modems malfunctioned,
Williams changed plans and
ordered workers to drive all of the memory packs to
headquarters.
"We were afraid the results would be corrupted"
over the modem-data lines,
she said.
Throughout the election night process, the memory
packs holding all of the
city votes are often in the hands of part-time or
temporary workers, including
some who are hired for election night alone, said
Smith.
The workers are told "over and over" that the
memory packs are one of the
most vital parts of counting the vote, Smith said.
"The challenge is always getting competent poll
workers," said Smith, a
30-year-old sophomore at Wayne State University who
has helped coordinate the
city's election night computer networks since 2000.
Memory packs usually go missing in city elections,
Williams said.
"It was Thursday when we found them all," she said.
"That's normal. Very
normal."
But Currie, who lost her re-election bid to upstart
city schoolteacher
Janice Winfrey, said Friday she was not familiar
with other examples of AWOL memory
packs.
"If they went missing, I am concerned about it,"
Currie said. "I have to
find out more about it."
The influx of additional votes from the missing
memory packs didn't help
Currie. She had 46.80% of the vote in the initial
count and 46.77% in the revised
count.
Also Friday, a federal judge sanctioned Currie's
lawyer for using stall
tactics in efforts to avoid a Wayne County judge's
order that Currie stop mailing
unsolicited absentee ballot applications.
Farmington Hills attorney Steven Reifman was
ordered to pay attorney fees in
the federal matter. Reifman did not return a call
for comment Friday.
City Council candidate Jai-Lee Dearing, a
restaurateur, lost the final City
Council seat by 3,340 votes, compared to 3,642 votes
in the initial count.
"It's amazing with everything that's going on and
the scrutiny that was
under the election process that individuals who were
responsible for transporting
data packs would take them home or some would go
missing," said Eric Foster, a
Dearing campaign consultant. "Going forward, we as
Detroiters have to
prioritize funding to make sure our elections
process works as efficiently and as
effectively as possible."
Smith, the city's election-night computer
consultant, said he, too, was
dismayed when the poll worker walked into the
elections office Wednesday with two
memory packs. "Needless to say, she won't be working
for us again as a poll
worker," Smith said.