Detroit election workers had to take election results across the county after Tuesday night’s statewide primary, delaying the reporting of unofficial results on election night.
Dorian Tyus, spokesman for the Wayne County Clerk’s Office, said the delays were due to a faulty firewall. The issue prevented local clerks from submitting their results electronically, forcing them to physically transport their vote counts to downtown Detroit.
The results started streaming online after midnight. But the episode has worried some who fear the delays could encourage conspiracy theories and it hurts them who expected faster election results – especially after last year’s overhaul of election rules. Once again, Michigan is expected to be a major swing state in November.
Daniel Baxter, chief assistant to the Detroit City Clerk’s office, said most of the results would have been available around 11 p.m. had it not been for a technical glitch. Instead, they started posting it online after midnight. Counting a large batch of about 10,000 postal ballots cast on Election Day took until 6 a.m. the next morning, he added.
Mail-in ballots arriving on Election Day are a common source of delay in results because it takes time to verify signatures and process other ballots. These steps happen while people wait in line and are checked in when they vote in person.
“What we’re focused on now — more than ever — is accuracy,” Baxter said. he said. “Of course we 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 ballot counts.”
Detroit was a prime target of election conspiracy theories in 2020, with days of disputed vote counting leading to near-riots. at the TCF Center.
then a A civic-led vote forced an overhaul of the measure In the election code, the state allowed election officials to begin processing outbound ballots well in advance of Election Day in hopes of speeding up vote counting on election night. While the results took longer than some expected, state, county and city officials stressed the system is working as intended, with results being delivered physically when electronic methods fail.
“We will continue to work with local officials to identify additional ways to expedite the process, but we will never do so at the expense of making sure the count is accurate,” said Angela Benander Benson, communications director for Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s office.
He and others acknowledged that conspiracy theories could worsen amid the delays.
“That’s why we encourage Michigan citizens and news outlets to rely on official sources of information for all questions about standard election procedures and to rest assured that they know our state’s robust security processes ensure accurate results,” he said.
Michael Siegrist, the Democratic clerk for Canton Township, said misinformation and misinformation tend to “fill the void” during the delay, which election workers can try and mitigate.
“On the other hand, at this point, I think the purveyors of election disinformation and disinformation, I don’t know that there’s much you can do to satisfy them. they play it over and over.”