Michigan Study Finds Democratic Poll Workers Far Outnumber Republicans

Although state law mandates parity, Republican poll workers are scarce in Michigan’s largest cities, a nonprofit’s study found.

Voters wait for same-day registration outside the Detroit Department of Elections headquarters on Nov. 5, 2024. Davslens Photography for The Epoch Times

Study results released this month showed that Democratic poll workers greatly outnumbered Republican poll workers at precincts in Michigan’s largest cities during the November 2024 election.

Researchers from the Michigan Fair Elections Institute (MFEI), a nonprofit, educational organization, conducted the study based on official government records obtained by Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.

Detroit hired 4,176 poll workers (also called election inspectors) for the November 2024 election. Of these, 2,994 were Democrats, 504 were Republicans, and 678 had left the party affiliation line on their application blank or marked it “undecided.”

Michigan law requires that in every precinct, “as nearly as possible,” an equal number of election workers must be appointed from each of the two major political parties. The pertinent statutes are Michigan Compiled Laws 168-674 and 168-679a.

The MFEI press release cites a related report, obtained by MFEI from the Pure Integrity Michigan Elections organization and the Michigan Conservative Coalition, that found that during the August 2024 primary election in Detroit, of the 143 individuals identified as Republican poll workers, 131 had histories of voting in Democratic primaries, raising questions about their political leanings—a statistic that further exacerbates the city’s partisan imbalance when taken into account.

The MFEI study’s comparison of the percentage of Detroit’s Republican election workers in the 2020 general election (3.1 percent) and their percentage in the 2024 general election (12.1 percent) shows some improvement but is still far below the parity required by Michigan law.

The Elections Office of the city of Detroit declined to comment.

Around the State

In the November 2024 general election in Grand Rapids, the number of Democrats working the polls represented 70 percent of the total workers, while Republicans made up 26 percent.

Grand Rapids Deputy Clerk Jeanessa Smith told The Epoch Times: “Joel Hondrop, our city clerk, is a Republican. We would love to have a full balance between Democrat and Republican election workers. We are trying everything to get more Republican poll workers. We have reached out to the Republican Party, which has sent us some, but it is still very hard to get enough Republican workers. A balance would make everyone’s job easier.”

Democratic poll workers outnumbered Republicans in Warren, 65 percent to 32 percent; Lansing, 62 percent to 36 percent; Ann Arbor, 79 percent to 19 percent; and in Dearborn, 61 percent to 21 percent.

Of the cities surveyed, only Sterling Heights, a northern suburb of Detroit, reported statistical parity with 48.3 percent of its election workers being Democrats and 48.3 percent Republicans.

According to the study, Sterling Heights hired 144 Democrats and 143 Republican election workers, demonstrating that the state’s equal partisan representation mandate was achievable.

The Sterling Heights city clerk’s office did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.

MFEI spokesperson Patrice Johnson told The Epoch Times that there are no specified enforcement processes, fines, or other penalties for partisan imbalance violations.

The acknowledged difficulty of finding enough Republicans to work elections in overwhelmingly Democratic jurisdictions is mitigated, according to Johnson, by the fact that Michigan allows jurisdictions with big majorities favoring one party to hire qualified election workers registered to vote in other jurisdictions around the state.

Residents voting in the Masjid Al Falah polling place in the Detroit suburb of Hamtramck, Mich., on Nov. 5, 2024 Davslens Photography for The Epoch Times

Johnson said that any citizen who finds his or her precinct is out of balance should document the discrepancy and fill out an affidavit.

“They should notify their party’s leadership and the MFEI. If it’s during an election, the citizens should call their party’s election night hotline. It’s also reasonable to politely show the on-duty election administrator or team leader the law.”

According to the study, the pattern of the ongoing overrepresentation of Democratic election workers and the underrepresentation of Republicans diminishes bipartisan oversight, which it sees as “essential for election integrity and public confidence.”

FOIA Timelines 

The study also expressed concern over the lack of timely response by some of the cities to MFEI’s FOIA requests.

The act requires officials to respond to a FOIA request within 20 working days.

MFEI researchers reported in the study that it took Grand Rapids 175 days; Detroit, 115 days; Warren, 86 days; and Ann Arbor, 52 days to fulfill their requests. Each of them required repeated reminders.

In contrast, Dearborn fulfilled MFEI’s request on the same day, Sterling Heights within seven days, and Lansing within 15 days, thereby meeting federal standards.

Neither Michigan’s Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson nor Democratic Attorney General Dana Nessel responded to a request for comment by publication time.