Green Party candidate Jill Stein’s presidential vote recount in Michigan may have turned up massive voter irregularities, but they’re not the kind Hillary Clinton was hoping to find in the Democratic stronghold of Detroit.
Oops! Stein’s recount turns up more votes than voters in Detroit!
Stein’s recount has backfired and now it’s Republican leaders who are demanding an investigation to determine why a third of Detroit’s voting machines registered more ballots than actual voters, Hillary Clinton won with 95 percent of the votes.
Jill Stein's crusade to expose voter fraud blows the lid off ballot box fraud in Detroit where Hillary Clinton won big pic.twitter.com/1Xw92L8krz
— FOX & friends (@foxandfriends) December 14, 2016
The voting irregularities in Detroit have spurred plans for an audit by Michigan Secretary of State Ruth Johnson’s office, Elections Director Chris Thomas said Monday.
Republican state Sen. Patrick Colbeck called the audit “a good place to start” to determine if election workers “followed the correct procedures” or “fraudulent procedures” on Election Day.
The Detroit News reported that voting scanning machines at 248 of the city’s 662 precincts — 37 percent — tabulated more ballots than the number of actual voters counted in the poll books.
“There’s always going to be small problems to some degree, but we didn’t expect the degree of problem we saw in Detroit. This isn’t normal,” Krista Haroutunian, chairwoman of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers, told the paper.
The partial statewide recount that ended Friday by court order did not change Donald Trump’s victory in Michigan, which he won by more than 10,000 votes. The fresh tally of 2.1 million ballots turned up a net difference of 102 more votes for Clinton, the New York Post reported.
The new audit is aimed at finding out whether human error, fraud or negligence is to blame for the mismatched irregularities in Detroit. The investigation could take about three weeks.
Hot Air reported that because of Jill Stein, the state House of Representatives passed a tough voter-ID bill earlier this month that includes $3 million for funding of free state identification and birth certificates after over 18,000 voters cast ballots without identification in the presidential election:
Current law requires a photo ID too, but also allows for voters to sign an affidavit under oath that attests to their identity and eligibility. The House might have had ample reason to wonder about abuse under that system when looking at the distribution of the practice.
Republicans have a supermajority in Michigan’s upper chamber, 27-11, so it would seem to be a slam-dunk that this change will get to Governor Rick Snyder’s desk. The GOP did lose a couple of members on the House vote, but they’ve got room to breathe in the Senate. Unless Snyder surprises Republicans with a veto, the bill should pass into law at the end of the session.
