As the presidential election recount gets underway in Michigan, critical votes in Metropolitan Detroit may be removed from the count. Major issues stemming from broken machines is the bulk of the issue, according to report coming from election officials in nearly half of the precincts in Wayne County, Michigan.
The heavily Democratic county is bracing for the turmoil of the recount process slated to begin ASAP, forgoing the two-day waiting period. With over 1,350,000 voters and 1,600 precincts, election officials have indicated the possibility of disqualifying at least one-third of the precinct’s votes.
Election machines in the county are old and barely work, some dating over ten years. In some cases, poll workers failed to adjust machine counts after ballots were successfully entered after a failed attempt.
With Trump winning the state by only 10,704 votes, the recount from Wayne County voters is critical. However, state law indicates if any precinct’s votes cannot be recounted, the original votes remain. This news is devastating coming from a state with such a slight differential in numbers between President-elect, Donald Trump, and his rival, former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton.
Michigan is primarily a paper ballot voting state. Voters manually select the candidate, and when done, the ballot is inserted into a machine which interprets the voting marks. When machines are a decade old or more this can cause problems.
If voters don’t darken their mark enough or make mistakes, the machine cannot decipher those errors.
After Green Party candidate, Jill Stein, motioned courts in several states, for a recount, Trump’s legal team went to war opposing the recount.
On Monday, December 5, 2016, U.S. District Judge Mark Goldsmith approved the motion for recount and Michigan’s eighty-three counties began to scramble for volunteers to help.
Trump’s legal team went back to the drawing board and called foul on the Federal court, and moved to petition the Michigan Court of Appeals saying the Federal court was out of its jurisdiction. The Michigan Court of Appeals will convene on Tuesday, December 6 at 4 p.m., local time.
The critical votes that could change the election result for Michigan lay in the hands of the recount for Wayne County.
With so many issues with the precincts, it looks like Michigan’s numbers may remain the same or increase the victory for Trump if other counties have increased votes in his favor after the recount.
Featured Image: Screenshot Via VerifedVoting.
