Judge Rejects Michigan GOP Candidate’s Request to Disqualify Mail-In Ballots in Detroit

Kristina Karamo speaks at a rally hosted by former President Donald Trump near Washington, Mich., on April 2, 2022. Scott Olson/Getty Images

A judge has rejected a request by Michigan secretary of state candidate Kristina Karamo to reject mail-in ballots from Detroit for the midterm elections.

Karamo, a Republican, filed a lawsuit several weeks ago seeking to disqualify absentee ballots in only Detroit, which overwhelmingly votes for Democrats, and require them to show up in person on Nov. 8. She said the mail-in ballot counting system in Detroit violates election law.

But a judge in Wayne County, Timothy Kenny, dismissed her lawsuit (pdf) and claimed she “raised a false flag of election law violations and corruption concerning Detroit’s procedures for the November 8th election,” adding: “This Court’s ruling takes down that flag.”

“Plaintiffs’ failure to produce any evidence that the procedures for this November 8th election violate state or federal election law demonizes the Detroit City Clerk, her office staff, and the 1,200 volunteers working this election. These claims are unjustified, devoid of any evidentiary basis and cannot be allowed to stand,” the ruling said.

In her lawsuit, Karamo asserted the city of Detroit has been “plagued with election corruption for years” and noted that her goal is designed to protect the rights of Detroit residents casting legal ballots. After the 2020 election, Republicans and former President Donald Trump’s team claimed there was fraudulent activity at vote-counting sites in Detroit.

Alexandria Taylor, an attorney for Karamo, denied that the lawsuit seeks to undermine black voters. Detroit, which has been steadily losing population for decades due to a loss of manufacturing jobs and high violent crime rates, is about 77 percent black.

“What we filed is not a racist filing, and I take offense to that as a black attorney with deep roots in the city of Detroit,” Taylor said, according to local media reports. “We just want full and fair elections. That’s what our plaintiffs here want, and we want that done in the best way possible.” Both Taylor and Karamo are black.

For Michigan, top midterm races include Democrat Gov. Gretchen Whitmer running against GOP challenger Tudor Dixon, Attorney General Dana Nessel running against Kalamazoo lawyer Matthew DePerno, and Democrat Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson running against Karamo, a former community college professor.

The state lost a U.S. House seat coming out of the Census but still has three of its 13 districts drawing national attention.

Michigan’s polls close at 8 p.m. ET. Most of the state is in the Eastern Time Zone and closes at 8 p.m. ET. Four counties are in the Central Time Zone and do not close until 9 p.m. ET.

The counties to watch are the four most populous ones: Wayne, which includes Detroit; the suburban counties of Oakland and Macomb; and Kent in western Michigan where Grand Rapids, the state’s second-largest city is located.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.