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Initial Michigan county results did not include thousands of votes

Online Niel November 9, 2024

Initial election results in Michigan’s Calhoun County did not include all the votes cast there, and officials worked Friday to resolve the discrepancy, flipping a tight state House race there by a 58-vote margin.

Calhoun County is located in southern Michigan and is featured a House The race between state Rep. Jim Haadsma, D-Battle Creek, and Republican Steve Frisbie, a Calhoun County commissioner, has been seen as key to control of the lower chamber. The reporting issue centered on absentee ballots that were submitted in the city of Battle Creek, said Angela Benander, spokeswoman for Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson.

The city used two high-speed tabulators for absentee ballots, but the county’s election management system was not programmed to combine the drives from the two tabulators, according to Benson’s office. So after reading the first set of numbers, it replaced the first results with the second set instead of adding them together, Benander said.

“So there were a lot of votes missing from the reported results,” Benander told The Detroit News on Friday.

There were 7,416 absentee ballots cast in Battle Creek, according to the secretary of state’s website.

In a statement Friday afternoon, Calhoun County Clerk Kimberly Hinkley’s office said about 2,800 ballots in the city of Battle Creek were voided and not initially counted.

“I am confident in the integrity of our election process despite this temporary issue, and ultimately we will be able to certify 100 percent of the results in our county as required by law and expected by our constituents,” Hinkley said.

The Calhoun County website will continue to be updated until the results are finalized, according to the statement.

In unofficial initial numbers for the 44th District, which includes Battle Creek and sweeps across the northern side of Calhoun County, Frisbie defeated Haadsma by 1,381 votes, 19,233-17,852. The Associated Press declared Frisbie the winner on Wednesday.

On Friday at 3:30 p.m., the Calhoun numbers were updated after the vote report was identified. In the new results, Frisbie was up 58 votes, 20,823-20,765, setting up the possibility of a recount.

Frisbie said he would have preferred a victory of 1,381 votes to 58, although he expects his margin to widen in the coming days as ballots from overseas servicemen arrive in the mail.

“Apparently, the Democrats have done a very good job of soliciting absentee ballots,” Frisbie said Friday night. “… It just tells you that hard work pays off.”

Democrats lost control of the state House by 110 seats in Tuesday’s election, and Republicans counted Frisbie in their new 58-seat majority.

Election attorney Chris Trebilcock, who represents Haadsma, said there are 12 precincts in Battle Creek involving about 4,000 votes that were incorrectly reported in the unofficial results.

“That’s why our election system has checks and balances,” Trebilcock said Friday. “These accidental errors are designed to be corrected by the county canvas. We are monitoring closely to ensure that the process is being conducted fairly and in accordance with the law.”

About 4,300 votes were added to Calhoun County’s updated results for the presidential race from the original, according to a Detroit News analysis.

Under initial and unofficial numbers on the county’s website, about 58 percent of Calhoun County’s registered voters cast ballots. The percentage in some of Battle Creek’s 23 precincts in the initial numbers was considerably lower: two had less than 30 percent turnout, and eight had less than 40 percent turnout.

Frisbie, a 14-year member of the Calhoun County Commission, credited Hinkley with spotting the error in the final numbers and alerting the county’s research board, which will continue its work next week before certifying the results.

“It had railings and lawsuits to say, ‘Hey, something’s wrong, stop the presses,’ and here we are.” I think that’s how the process was designed,” Frisbie told The Detroit News.

In 2020, 66,687 ballots were cast in the Calhoun County presidential race. Initial numbers for 2024 listed 64,251, although statewide voter turnout increased. In the updated numbers, there were 68,562 votes cast in the presidential race.

According to initial numbers, former Republican President Donald Trump won 58 percent of the vote in Calhoun County, while Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris won 41 percent, according to unofficial results released Wednesday.

In Friday’s updated polls, Trump had 56 percent and Harris had 42 percent.

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