Balloting problems came to light in Detroit on Wednesday, one day after U.S. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders pulled off a shocking upset of front-runner Hillary Clinton in the Michigan Democratic primary. Wayne County Board of Canvassers officials discovered that a handful of Detroit precincts registered zero votes during balloting. Memory cards for three precincts showed no votes cast, while five absentee ballot precincts were uploaded Wednesday as zero, acknowledged Daniel Baxter, director of Detroit elections. Canvassers will have to review the ballots in those precincts, but Baxter said they’re unlikely to change the results. Sanders won the statewide contest by 18,350 votes — 595,073 to 576,723 — and the precincts at issue had about 1,500 votes, Baxter said. Another estimate at the canvassers meeting put the tally at closer to 5,000 voters. “This will have no effect on the outcome,” Baxter said.
Clinton, a former secretary of state, carried Detroit 73 percent to 26 percent, taking 89,900 of the 122,000 ballots cast. Turnout in the city was about 25.5 percent, a big uptick from 2012, but below the 34.5 percent participation statewide.
Pundits nationwide are attributing Sanders’ upset to his relatively strong showing among African-Americans in Michigan, capturing about a third of their votes. In Tuesday’s other primary in Mississippi, exit polls showed Clinton beating Sanders among African-Americans by a 7 to 1 margin.
The city had 490 precincts overall, and problems weren’t limited to missing results. A report to the canvassers indicated the city had 11 missing poll book envelopes (registries signed by voters), while other envelopes containing results were torn or unsealed.
Full Article: Primary ballot snafus arise in Detroit.