Department of Justice monitors find no issues, Detroit elections chief says

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Department of Justice monitors find no issues, Detroit elections chief says

Detroit — The U.S. Department of Justice officials who monitored Detroit's voting process Tuesday found no issues, said Daniel Baxter, the city's head of elections, said late Tuesday night.
Baxter made the comments after saying election workers still had several hours of vote counting before they were finished.
"We are pleased to announce that no issues occurred today regarding voter assist terminals or provisional ballots," Baxter said at Huntington Place, the city's convention hall site where the city is processing absentee ballots — the same location in November 2020 where President Donald Trump and his supporters alleged that voter fraud occurred.
More: DOJ says it will send election monitors to 3 Michigan cities
But the courts, the state's canvassers, a series of state election audits and a Republican-led Senate committee found there was no widespread voter fraud and that Democrat Joe Biden won the Michigan presidential election.
"We're just excited for the fact that every Detroiter that wanted to engage in the process today had an opportunity to vote in open, free and transparent elections," Baxter added.
The Department of Justice sent a letter to the city's election officials earlier this year saying it would send election monitors to the August primary because it had concerns about the way the city handled provisional ballots and voter assist terminals in the 2024 election.
The Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for comment by email.
The Department of Justice election monitors visited five or six polling places as well as Huntington Place on Tuesday, Detroit's elections director said.
"They didn't engage with voters. They were very cordial," Baxter said.
At Huntington Place, there were few election challengers who had signed in to monitor activities as of 11:20 p.m. Tuesday. There were eight challengers from the Democratic Party and none from the Republican Party. There were two challengers from outside groups, including one from the Election Integrity Fund and another from Promote the Vote.
laguilar@detroitnews.com