‘Clear Fraud’ in Vote Counting in Michigan County, Says Attorney Who Filed Lawsuit

A worker with the Detroit Department of Elections helps process an absentee ballot at the Central Counting Board in the TCF Center in Detroit, Mich., on Nov. 4, 2020. (Elaine Cromie/Getty Images)

The attorney in a Michigan lawsuit alleging voter fraud in the Nov. 3 election says that the suit was launched to ensure Americans have confidence in the electoral process underpinning the nation’s democracy.

David A. Kallman, senior counsel with the Great Lakes Justice Center, is representing two plaintiffs in a suit filed on Nov. 9 against the city of Detroit and Wayne County alleging “numerous issues of fraud and misconduct” in relation to the processing and counting of votes in the county. Wayne County, where Detroit is located, is Michigan’s largest county.

For Kallman, the key point of the lawsuit is about ensuring that all the votes were “fair and legal,” rather than about who ultimately wins the votes.

“What’s important here is that people have to have confidence in our elective system,” Kallman told The Epoch Times. “And if they don’t have confidence that our elections are fair and impartial, and that there’s no fraud going on, then the leaders who get ostensibly elected have no authority.”

“So this goes to the core of our system of government,” he added. “And if people don’t trust that our elections are fair, we’re not going to have a government for very long.”

Kallman said the complaint showed “clear fraud” in the processing of votes in Wayne County.

Workers with the Detroit Department of Elections help process absentee ballots at the Central Counting Board in the TCF Center in Detroit, Mich., on Nov. 4, 2020. (Elaine Cromie/Getty Images)

The 78-page lawsuit (pdf) alleges numerous instances of voter fraud, supported by six sworn witness statements.

In one of those statements, Jessy Jacob, a city of Detroit employee, said she was instructed to backdate mail ballots and not to look for any deficiencies with the ballots. Jacob also claimed she was told not to ask for identification when voters arrived to vote in person.

“I directly observed, on a daily basis, City of Detroit election workers and employees coaching and trying to coach voters to vote for Joe Biden and the Democrat party,” she says in the affidavit, adding that she witnessed them “encouraging voters to do a straight Democrat ballot.”

In another affidavit, poll challenger Andrew Sitto said that tens of thousands of ballots arrived at about 4:30 a.m. on Nov. 4 at the TCF Center, where absentee ballots were being counted for Wayne County. Sitto said that every ballot in the batch that he observed was cast for Joe Biden.

The lawsuit also alleges that poll workers were instructed to ignore signature mismatches on mail-in ballots, that voters who showed up at the polling site but could not be found on the voter files had ballots assigned to them from a random name on the qualified voter files, and that unsecured ballots arrived at TCF Center in boxes with open tops and no seals, and without envelopes.

Kallman said the plaintiffs were seeking a preliminary injunction to prevent the certification of Wayne County’s election results, and a court order to preserve all evidence such as computer records, ballots, and logs. No hearing date has yet been set for the injunction application, he said.

A worker with the Detroit Department of Elections sorts through absentee ballots at the Central Counting Board in the TCF Center in Detroit, Mich., on Nov. 4, 2020. (Elaine Cromie/Getty Images)

At the final hearing, the plaintiffs are asking for “an audit of the election, which our constitution permits,” Kallman said.

“The court has a lot of options,” he added. “If they think the fraud is bad enough, the court could void the election and order a new election.”

David Fink, lead counsel for the city of Detroit, described the litigation as "yet another belated lawsuit, raising baseless allegations, trying to undermine confidence in a well-run election.

“This case is not based upon actual evidence of any election fraud or misconduct. It is based upon various conspiracy theories, which have already been debunked. We are confident that this case, like the others filed last week, will be dismissed,” he said in an emailed statement to The Epoch Times.

Fink added, “There were more than 200 Republican challengers in the room at the TCF Center, but only five such people have come forward to support these claims, which actually tells us how well the process was run.”

Democratic nominee Joe Biden held a 146,123 vote lead over President Donald Trump in Michigan as of 4:03 p.m. on Monday. Neither Michigan nor any other state has certified the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Ivan Pentchoukov, Zachary Stieber, and Eva Fu contributed to this report.