Error processing SSI fileState targets Detroit ballots
Secretary of State review looks at how clerk's election workers handle absentee votes.
The Michigan Secretary of State's Office said Monday it is reviewing potential voting irregularities outlined in a Detroit News report and is continuing its own inquiry into how Detroit City Clerk Jackie L. Currie oversees elections.
State department spokeswoman Kelly Chesney said the state is concerned that Currie's assistants, who have also been called "ambassadors," drop off and pick up absentee ballots from voters, a practice barred under state law.
"You can't solicit," Chesney said. "For the ballot ever to be hand-delivered" there must be special circumstances, and the law is written very specifically to outline what can and can't be done with a ballot to ensure its safety and security, she says.
The state is reviewing information it has and facts found in The Detroit News probe to determine what, if any, action to take, she said.
Meanwhile, Wayne County Chief Circuit Judge Mary Beth Kelly has signed a temporary restraining order that bars Currie from sending out her election assistants to help the elderly and disabled vote.
Hearings began Monday and will continue through the week to determine if Kelly will bar the workers through the Nov. 8 election.
Among findings by News reporters were ballots cast by people registered to vote at abandoned and long-demolished buildings; a master voter list with 380,000 incorrect names and addresses, including people who have died or moved out of the city; and a practice of hand-delivering ballots from senior citizens and disabled voters that were filled out in private meetings with Currie's paid election workers.
In addition, reporters found that city residents diagnosed with Alzheimer's and dementia who could not name the mayor of Detroit or know if they had voted in the primary had completed absentee ballots with the help of Currie's election workers.
In the August primary, 4,560 absentee ballots were delivered to the clerk's office by Currie's assistants.
Lawsuit has been filed
Following the primary, failed City Council candidate Maureen Taylor filed a lawsuit alleging that Currie's practices invited voter fraud, especially when it comes to the handling of absentee ballots.
Kelly is expected to make a decision later this week.
Dr. Leonard Young, who is acting as a spokesman for Currie, said the city clerk will not tolerate election workers who operate illegally, but declined to say what steps were being taken to look into the problems, particularly allegations that election officials may be filling out ballots for legally incapacitated people.
Young said "high-ranking city election officials," whom he would not name, said Rose Johnson, whom the News found was helping legally incapacitated people vote at a Detroit nursing home, was not an election assistant.
"We don't know who she is," he said.
But city clerk records list her name, along with the names, addresses and telephone numbers of about 50 other people, as election assistants and ambassadors.
Charmie Currie, one of Currie's sons, is listed as an election assistant.
A News reporter talked to Johnson as she was sitting next to a senior citizen filling out an absentee ballot.
"I don't talk to the newspapers," Johnson said.
It is unclear how many other communities, if any, have similar programs where special election assistants are sent to nursing homes and senior living centers to help with absentee ballots.
Calls for help are infrequent
In Dearborn, for example, city clerk workers only help people vote if they request assistance, Dearborn City Clerk Kathleen Buda said, and that occurs infrequently.
Buda said the city has a list of people who specifically want to vote absentee ballot, and those individuals are automatically sent ballot applications, which must be completed and returned before the actual absentee ballot is distributed.
In cases where a person needs physical help completing the absentee ballot, they must call the city and a worker is sent to assist, Buda said, but then the assistance is clearly documented.
"That happens very rarely," Buda said. "Sometimes in an election no one calls for help."
Family members of Alzheimer's patients have contacted the Dearborn city clerk to ensure that person no longer receives an absentee ballot, Buda said.
In court Monday, former council candidate Taylor testified that six days before the August primary she saw former state Rep. Nelis Saunders, 81, who works for Currie as an election assistant, wheeling a "shopping cart full" of absentee ballots into the Harmon House, a retirement home on Woodward Avenue, and distributing and collecting them from residents.
Taylor outlined personal examples of absentee ballots being mailed to dead people, including her mother, and gave testimony, buttressed by affidavits, about Currie's workers filling in blank absentee ballots in the basement of Cobo Center.
"How can you have a fair election if you don't clean this up?" asked Taylor in a response to a question from Currie's lawyer, Stephen Reifman.
Reifman has maintained that none of the measures being considered are necessary because Taylor's allegations are based on hearsay and cannot be documented from firsthand accounts.
Currie has maintained she has done nothing wrong and only wants to get as many people to participate in the voting process as possible.
Kelly already has attempted to take a number of steps to safeguard the Nov. 8 election, such as appointing monitors to watch over the absentee ballots. Those moves were kicked into motion after the judge found Currie in criminal contempt after she sent out about 130,000 absentee ballot applications in defiance of a court order.
Currie has fought to keep the ambassadors and election assistants in place.
You can reach David Josar at (313) 222-2073 or djosar@detnews.com.
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