How Detroit is securing the 2022 absentee ballot count at Huntington Place

Detroit police and election leaders say they’re doing all they can to ensure that the absentee ballot-counting process at Huntington Place goes smoothly Tuesday and is not a repeat of the chaos that erupted in November 2020, a precursor to the Jan. 6 insurrection.

In that presidential election year, misinformation spread quickly on social media, drawing large crowds to the convention center — then called the TCF Center. Protesters tried to halt absentee-ballot counting, making false claims that the votes were not legitimate.

Hordes of people swarmed outside the counting room, chanting “Stop the count!” as they pounded on the glass windows.

Chris Thomas, an adviser to Detroit City Clerk Janice Winfrey, said Tuesday's election ought to be a vastly different experience.

“Our operations are better than ever,” he said. “We learned a lot from 2020 and we ran two elections in 2021 plus the primary this year in August. We're prepared … and we're ready to get these things counted as quickly and as accurately as possible.”

What’s changed?

For starters, the ballot-counting room will not be on the ground floor of the convention center, as it was in 2020.

“The area where the Central Counting Board activity took place in 2020 was unusual because the main floor of the venue was still set up to be a field hospital” to care for overflow patients during the coronavirus pandemic, said Matt Friedman, a spokesperson for the nonpartisan Detroit Votes voter information campaign.

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“The pictures and images that endure from 2020 were in large part a function of having to use space at the venue that is not typically used to count ballots during an election,” he said. “Observers who were not a part of the count operation could see through the windows and draw their own conclusions about what they thought was happening inside the operation and spread messages all over the world. And that was an unusual moment in the history of Detroit elections.”

This year, the count returns to exhibit Hall A on the main floor.

“There are no windows where anyone from the outside will be able to peer through and attempt to disrupt the count operation,” he said.

What is the security plan?

Huntington Place will be a weapon-free zone, said Deputy Detroit Police Chief Franklin Hayes, with medical detectors and security screening for all who enter.

“The department has been meeting for a series of months … with the Department of Elections as well as internal and external stakeholders in developing a plan which we hope we don't have to use. We are prepared to ensure that the will of the people through their vote not be disrupted … in any way.”

Detroit Police Department officers will be both inside and outside of the convention center, working with Huntington Place security as well as contractors hired by the elections department to provide additional security.

“Chief (James) White has indicated his commitment to ensuring that we have a safe, proper election that is unimpacted by any bad actors or anyone not wanting to see the will of the people be done,” Hayes said.

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Will poll challengers be managed differently this year?

Yes. In 2020, there was some contention about how many poll challengers from each party could be allowed in the ballot-counting room at any given time. Many were kicked out when limits were exceeded.

Challengers roamed the floor two years ago, sometimes swarming election workers, trying to disrupt the count. People who hadn't undergone poll challenger training were called to the convention center by members of their political party to protest and try to intervene.

This year, the Detroit Department of Elections will allow 158 challengers from each party/organization into the room. They will be assigned to specific stations, and are expected to remain at those assigned locations, which include:

• One challenger at each counting board table, adjudication station and duplication station.

• Four challengers may be assigned per party to the tabulators

• Four managers per party or organization may oversee their challengers.

They must sign in and out of the room and be credentialed by a political party or organization.

"Challengers have been far better trained," Thomas said. "We've got different procedures, checking challengers in specific locations ... to avoid the roaming around that we had in 2020, when large groups of challengers could coalesce and kind of just group around one precinct.

"It's really more traffic control that we're taking care of and we're ready to enforce that."

How long will it take to complete the count of absentee ballots in Detroit?

About 1,200 city election workers will be on duty Tuesday and Wednesday at Huntington Place. They will begin counting absentee ballots starting at 7 a.m. Tuesday, the same time polls open, Thomas said. At that time, election workers will be sequestered inside the counting room and must remain there until polls close at 8 p.m.

They will continue working through the night until every vote is counted, Thomas said, which could take until about noon Wednesday.

"We may get it done before that," he said.

That's much faster than it took to count all the absentee ballots in 2020. That's because it's not a presidential election year, when there's usually a higher voter turnout, Friedman said. Additionally, election workers were able to begin preprocessing the ballots Sunday and Monday.

"That preprocessing will allow the ... clerk's office to have about three-quarters of the absentee ballots counted by 10 o'clock on election night," Friedman said. "That is good, very different ... than two years ago, when absentee ballots were still being counted well past the daylight hours on Wednesday."

What matters most, Friedman said, is that every vote counts.

"Detroit voters have options and they all count the same," he said. "It's up to you, the voter, to decide how you want to vote. That is a right provided to you by the Michigan Constitution as amended in 2019.

"An in-person vote on Election Day counts the same as a mailed-in absentee vote, which counts the same as an absentee vote put in a drop box, which counts the same as an absentee vote completed at a satellite voting center."

What about Kristina Karamo's lawsuit challenging Detroit absentee ballots?

It's been dismissed.

Karamo, the Republican candidate running for Michigan Secretary of State in Tuesday's election, sued in October in Wayne County Circuit Court, initially aiming to stop the count of Detroit absentee ballots that were not requested by voters in person.

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Later, attorneys representing Karamo modified the lawsuit, asking the court to expand access for election observers in the absentee ballot-counting room at Huntington Center, to grant poll challengers the authority to oversee election workers who verify voter signatures and to order Winfrey, the city clerk, to create a public record of the signature verification process along with a livestream of ballot dropbox surveillance for future elections.

Wayne County Circuit Judge Timothy Kenny said Karamo's efforts "would create the potential harm of disenfranchising tens of thousands of Detroiters" in Tuesday's election. "This is unacceptable and cannot be permitted."

Is there any additional oversight of the voting process in Detroit this year?

The Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Justice Department announced Monday it will monitor compliance with federal voting rights laws during Tuesday’s election in 64 jurisdictions nationally, including the city of Detroit, Flint, Grand Rapids, Pontiac and Southfield.

The department’s aim is to protect the right to vote, prohibit voter intimidation and voter suppression based on race, color, national origin or religion as well as ensuring access to voting for people enlisted in the military or living overseas and people with disabilities.

Free Press staff writer Clara Hendrickson contributed to this report.

Contact Kristen Jordan Shamus: kshamus@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @kristenshamus. Subscribe to the Free Press.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: How Detroit is securing 2022 ballot count at Huntington Place