Election workers count absentee ballots earlier this month in Detroit, the county seat of Wayne County, Michigan. The county's board of canvassers initially failed to certify its election results after the board's two Republican members voted against certification. They quickly reversed course under public pressure. Jeff Kowalsky/AFP via Getty Images
Officials in Michigan's most populous county reversed course and certified its election results Tuesday evening, just a few hours after a surprising party-line deadlock suddenly cast the certification of more than 800,000 votes in doubt. Wayne County voted overwhelmingly for President-elect Joe Biden.
The two Republican members of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers — a bipartisan foursome tasked with approving the results from a heavily populated swath of Michigan that includes Detroit — initially blocked the move to certify the votes, asserting discrepancies with the poll books in certain Detroit precincts.
That meant an extremely rare 2-2 tie, which would have been sent up to the Board of State Canvassers to decide. The deadlock even earned a celebratory tweet from President Trump, who lost Michigan and the presidential election but has refused to concede. The tie did not last long, however.
It stood for just about three hours under withering criticism, as residents made their complaints clear during a public comment period and local and national leaders lambasted the two members' decision online.
Wayne County Commission Chair Alisha Bell, for one, called it "an appalling outrage."
"They are denying justice and insulting and disregarding the will of Wayne County voters. They have neglected their responsibility by politicizing the certification process," Bell said in a statement issued Tuesday, adding that she was "disappointed in the two Republican members, Monica Palmer and William Hartmann."
Every court on the Detroit election results has ruled that Trump’s claims of error were baseless. Had the Board of Canvassers disenfranchised 1.4 million Wayne County voters over partisan politics, it would have been an historically shameful act.
— Mayor Mike Duggan (@MayorMikeDuggan) November 18, 2020
It’s plain and simple, folks. The Republican members of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers put politics above their duty to our residents. Suggesting that all of Wayne County can be certified, EXCEPT for Detroit, is horrifying racist and a subversion of our democracy.
— Rashida Tlaib (@RashidaTlaib) November 17, 2020
President-elect Joe Biden carried 68% of the vote in Wayne County. And in Detroit specifically, where Palmer and Hartmann focused their objections to the results, more than 78% of the city's population is black — a point that was not lost on critics.
During the Zoom meeting for public comment directly after the board's initial vote, Rev. Wendell Anthony, head of the Detroit branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, called the two members a "disgrace."
"You have extracted a Black city out of a county and said the only ones that are at fault is the city of Detroit, where 80% of the people who reside here are African Americans," he told the two Republican board members, according to The Associated Press. "Shame on you!"
The deadlock dissolved later that evening, however, as Palmer and Hartmann reversed their votes with the reassurance of a comprehensive audit of the vote tally. With their approval, the election results in Wayne County were certified unanimously.
The dust-up in Wayne County unfolded amid a nationwide effort by Trump and many of his GOP allies to push back on the results of the election. The outgoing president has claimed widespread voting fraud, without evidence, in the several of the states that he lost, including Michigan.
So far, however, his campaign to get the results overturned have hit roadblocks in court — not only in Michigan, where an appeals court on Monday ruled against a Republican bid to invalidate the vote in Wayne County, but also across the country. As NPR's Pam Fessler explained, similar efforts challenging the vote in Pennsylvania, Georgia and Wisconsin have failed to gain traction, as well.
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