Hamtramck Missing Votes Case

[Hamtramck Square]

Case Link :

https://www.courts.michigan.gov/c/court ... ase/378814


Summary of the majority opinion

Outcome:
The majority reverses the trial court and orders the Wayne County Board of Canvassers to subject the 37 uncounted absentee ballots to the ballot-challenge procedures (i.e., effectively to count or determine eligibility under the procedures the court directs).

Key reasoning:

The majority treats the uncounted ballots as ballots that must be canvassed unless they are otherwise ineligible under the Election Law or federal law.

It relies on MCL 168.814 (a ballot cast by an eligible elector must not be rejected or not counted in a canvass except when the ballot is otherwise ineligible).

The majority concludes the board’s refusal to count the 37 ballots was an abuse of discretion because nothing in the record established the ballots themselves were ineligible under the statute or federal law.

Rather than leaving the matter solely to the board’s discretionary judgment, the majority directs that the ballots be subjected to the statutory ballot-challenge process so eligibility and integrity can be resolved under that framework.

Practical effect ordered by the majority:


The 37 absentee ballots previously withheld must be processed through the formal challenge/eligibility procedures (per the court’s instructions), allowing voters’ qualifications or ballot validity to be determined rather than excluding the ballots outright based only on storage or access concerns.

The board cannot decline to canvass them categorically on the basis of the clerk’s inability to confirm storage integrity without applying the statutory eligibility rules.

Implications (what this means going forward)

Boards of canvassers have more limited authority to refuse to count ballots solely because of storage or custody concerns; courts may require use of the ballot-challenge/eligibility process instead.

Ballots with custody or security issues are to be resolved through the established statutory procedures (challenge, verification of voter qualification, etc.) before being excluded.

The decision emphasizes that ballots should be counted unless they are shown to be ineligible under law, shifting the initial burden toward using formal eligibility processes rather than immediate exclusion.

Tension remains between this majority approach and the dissent’s view that canvassers retain discretion where ballot integrity is uncertain (e.g., confirmed unauthorized access); future cases may further define how serious custody breaches must be before a board can refuse counting without invoking the challenge process.