Your week in Metro Detroit: Election inspectors return for August primary

Good morning, Free Press subscribers,

The Aug. 2 primary is right around the corner. That means election officials across the state are gearing up for the first statewide election since 2020, and preparing election workers — or “inspectors” as they’re called under Michigan law — to serve at polling locations and process absentee ballots.

Election inspectors work long days, carrying out a series of repetitive but essential tasks to ensure every vote counts. Two years ago, election workers in Detroit dealt with the added challenge of election observers who mistook standard processes for fraud. I fact-checked and debunked many of their claims and have focused on helping people better understand the nuts and bolts of running elections in Michigan since then.

Inspectors help ensure Election Day goes smoothly, and I wondered whether those whose work was challenged in 2020 had decided to come back. So I went to an election training in Detroit earlier this month to find out and discovered a room full of returning inspectors.

Brenda Carethers — a 57-year-old retired Detroit public schools principal who lives in Bloomfield Hills — told me after the training that when she worked the November 2020 election, a line of women walked around the room and chanted “stop the count.”

She said it was fulfilling to get the job done to finish the count. “I enjoyed it so much I said, 'You know what? I want this to be a part of my way of giving back to the community, my city,'” she said.

She could end up working alongside some of the very same Republicans who backed efforts to stop election officials from certifying the votes.

Among the Republicans appointed as inspectors for the upcoming primary are a plaintiff in a lawsuit that sought to void the election and order a new one, a Trump supporter who said that she went to Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6 to show the strength of the "stop the steal" movement and a leader of a Michigan group that has spread misinformation about 2020.

"I encourage everyone to sign up, whether you believe in the big lie or not," 31-year-old Max Rohtbart told me. He’s a seasoned Republican election inspector who’s worked in Oakland County but has been assigned to Detroit for the first time. "These election inspectors are actually going to see all the checks and balances," he said.

Edith Lee-Payne, a 70-year-old civil rights activist from Detroit, told me that greater Republican participation in working the upcoming election in Detroit could take the wind out of the sails of some of the baseless claims of a stolen election.

She questioned how those helping to administer elections could level allegations of widespread fraud. “You saw what happened. You were a part of it,” she said.

This year's midterms will serve as a kind of election on elections, and the Free Press politics team will help explain the basics, track any misinformation that emerges and report on any controversies surrounding the vote count and its certification. Your subscription to the Free Press makes that reporting possible. Thank you for supporting our journalism!

You can reach me via email at chendrickson@freepress.com or by phone at 313-296-5743 and follow my reporting on Twitter @clarajanehen.

All the best,

Clara

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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Election inspectors return for August primary