Detroit election workers had to release election results countywide Tuesday night after the state primary, delaying the release of unofficial results on election night.
The delays were due to a faulty firewall, said Dorian Tyus, spokesman for the Wayne County Clerk’s Office. The issue prevented local officials from submitting their results electronically, which meant they had to physically transport vote counts to downtown Detroit.
The results began to be published online well after midnight. But the episode has worried some who fear the delays could encourage conspiracy theories and frustrating those who expected faster election results – especially after last year’s major overhaul of election rules. Once again, Michigan is expected to be a swing state in November.
Daniel Baxter, chief counsel for the Detroit city clerk’s office, said most of the results would be ready by 11 p.m. if not for the technicality. Instead, they started posting online after midnight. The large batch of approximately 10,000 mail-in ballots that were delivered on Election Day took until 6 a.m. the next morning to be counted, he added.
Mail-in ballots arriving on Election Day are a common source of delayed results, as it takes time to verify signatures and perform other ballot processing. These steps occur as people wait in line and check in when they vote in person.
“Our focus now – more than at any other time – is precision,” Baxter he said. “We certainly want to be as timely as possible, but we also want to produce a quality product, so we take the time to make sure every vote is counted.”
Detroit was a major target of election conspiracy theories in 2020 after riots nearly broke out amid days of contentious absentee vote counting at the TCF Center.
After a citizen-led ballot measure forced a major overhaul of the election code, the state made it possible for election workers to begin processing absentee ballots well before Election Day, hoping to speed up counting on election night. And while results may have taken longer than some expected, state, county and city officials emphasized that the system worked as designed, with results being delivered physically when electronic methods failed.
“We will continue to work with local officials to identify additional ways to speed up the process, but we will never do so at the expense of ensuring the count is accurate,” said Angela Benander, communications director for Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn. Benson’s office.
She and others acknowledged that conspiracy theories could worsen amid delays.
“That’s why we encourage Michigan citizens and media outlets to trust official sources of information for all questions about standard election procedures and to know that our state’s robust security processes ensure accurate results,” she added .
Michael Siegrist, Canton Township’s Democratic clerk, said misinformation and disinformation tend to “fill the vacuum” during a delay, something election workers can try to mitigate.
“On the other hand, right now, I think those who are the purveyors of disinformation and election misinformation, I don’t know that there’s much you can do to satisfy them,” he said. they play it over and over.”
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