The state has found no evidence of voter fraud after auditing 136 Detroit precincts that couldn’t be recounted after the November election. Chris Thomas, the Secretary of State’s director of elections, said there were problems with the performance of staff at the precincts where the ballots couldn’t be recounted either because the numbers in poll books didn’t match the number of ballots in the box or because some ballot boxes were improperly sealed. “There was no pervasive fraud found in our audit of Detroit. We did not find widespread voting machine problems,” Thomas said at a news conference Thursday. “We did find widespread performance issues that tracked back to the training by the Detroit city clerk.”
The problems were discovered during a statewide recount of the presidential race requested by Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein. One of the chief things learned from the three days of recounting in 26 counties was the sheer number of ballots that couldn’t actually be recounted because of mistakes in the way the ballots were recorded or because of ballot containers that were improperly secured.
As a result, the state Bureau of Elections audited 136 precincts in Detroit that couldn’t be recounted. One precinct — Precinct 152 — brought the problem to light when 52 ballots were discovered in a ballot container, but 307 votes had been logged in the poll book. Other precincts audited had similar problems.
“The audit found that the precinct imbalances, which did not affect the ability of Detroit residents to cast a ballot and have their vote counted, almost entirely were caused by precinct worker mistakes,” the state’s audit said.
Full Article: State audit: No evidence of fraud in Detroit vote.