Another Election Mess that Calls for Election Safeguards

The City of Detroit is a bankrupt mess.  If it is possible, its elections are worse. 

The state took over the job of verifying the Detroit primary results after the Wayne County Board of Canvassers last week refused to certify results prepared by the county clerk’s staff that differed greatly from unofficial results the city’s elections department compiled on election night.

The county’s figures — the result of a two-week review of Detroit’s election documents — would have invalidated more than 20,000 write-in votes for mayor and declared Wayne County Sheriff Benny Napoleon the winner instead of write-in candidate Mike Duggan, who was declared the winner on election night.  . . .

According to the city’s unofficial results, Duggan received 44,395 write-in votes and Napoleon received 28,352 votes.

The county’s unofficial results had Napoleon on top with 28,391 votes to Duggan’s 23,970 votes.

While the 20,000 vote number is high, this sort of happening is not a rare event.  We have Obamacare because then Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman won a narrow election but election officials in various Minnesota counties used different standards to recount absentee ballots that favored recount winner Al Franken.  This recount of absentee ballots was not supposed to take place under guidelines developed by the liberal Soros-funded hack Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie.  Ritchie changed his own rules at the bequest of the Franken campaign.  Election loser but recount winner Senator Franken then cast the deciding vote for Obamacare.

This commentary by Jonathan Tobin puts it in perspective. 

Regardless of whether those who showed up to cast write-ins did so legally or of the political motivations of those who threw those ballots out due to technicalities, the nationwide drive to police elections is based in fact, not prejudice. In an era when safeguards against fraud have been thrown out willy-nilly in order to make it easier to vote via early voting, liberal granting of absentee ballots, and same-day registration, it has become almost impossible to guarantee the integrity of the results. To think that politicians and parties do not try to take advantage of this situation is hopelessly naïve. Reforming this situation requires states to make sure that those who vote are who they say they are and that regulations that prevent safeguards from being put in place are re-written to ensure the integrity of the process.

We thoroughly agree with Mr. Tobin.  Unfortunately, there are those in the Democrat Party like those in Detroit that like elections to be messes to enable fraud to occur much easier.