The Detroit City Clerk’s Office violated a law intended to protect election transparency by processing and tabulating absentee ballots early without alerting the public or taking other required steps, a Highland Park activist alleges in a lawsuit to be filed in federal court Monday.
Robert Davis, a citizen watchdog of election practices, says the city began processing and tabulating absentee ballots on Thursday without taking the legal steps required to do so. The process continued Friday, he says.
Despite what he says is a blatant violation of state law, neither the state Attorney General’s Office nor the Secretary of State’s Office has done anything to address it, leaving him no choice but to file an emergency lawsuit Monday, he tells Metro Times.
In an email Thursday, Davis urged the Secretary of State’s Office to “immediately exercise supervisory control over” Clerk Janice Winfrey’s office. He received no response.
“For some odd reason, Secretary of State Benson and her staff have allowed Detroit election officials to continue to violate the law, which puts the legitimacy of this election in question,” Davis says. “The incompetence of the secretary of state [Jocelyn Benson] and Detroit city clerk shall not be tolerated, and I’m hopeful a federal judge will put a stop to their blatant disregard of the law so that citizens of the city of Detroit can have full confidence in their elections.”
In a statement to Metro Times, a spokesperson for the Attorney General’s Office said an assistant attorney general requested “some factual information” from Davis, but he “replied that he had already filed his lawsuit.”
Beginning last year, state law began allowing clerks up to eight days before an election to process and tabulate absentee ballots to expedite a process that has delayed results by hours and even days. The process includes verifying the voter’s signature on the return envelope, opening it, and preparing the ballot for counting.
But to process and tabulate absentee ballots early, state law requires clerks to follow steps that Davis says were ignored in Detroit. For one, he says, the clerk failed to publicly post the days that the ballots are being processed and how many were tabulated. That’s important because election monitors and challengers have the right to be present during the process, but they “don’t know where and when it’s happening,” Davis says.
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The Detroit Election Commission is also required to establish an absent voting counting board for each election day precinct in the city. The city council is also mandated to approve the locations where the boards tabulate the ballots, the law states.
Neither of those things happened, Davis alleges.
“The simple safeguards are there so the process is transparent and there is no question that there is no unethical behavior taking place,” Davis says. “Why the Detroit city clerk chooses to ignore the law baffles me. Why the secretary of state, who prides herself on election integrity, refuses to take supervisory control and properly advise and direct the Detroit city clerk is baffling. The incompetence of both of these individuals is just alarming and concerning.”
The lawsuit will be filed one day before Detroiters vote in the primary election for the next mayor and council members.
Davis made national news in September 2023 when he tried to get Donald Trump booted from the presidential ballot in Michigan on the grounds that he violated the U.S. Constitution by engaging in an insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021. The effort ultimately failed.
Davis has won a number of election-related cases, getting candidates removed from the ballot and prompting a judge to oust seven-term Highland Park Treasurer Janice Taylor-Bibbs from running for office because she was ineligible for election.
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This article appears in Jul 23 – Aug 5, 2025.
