Four years ago, supporters of then-President Donald Trump gathered outside the convention center in downtown Detroit as election workers counted absentee ballots inside.
Employees were harassed as the group held signs reading “stop the stealing” and “stop the cheating.” Some banged on windows in an attempt to disrupt the counting of votes. There are extensive plans in place to ensure this does not happen again.
Detroit City Clerk Janice Winfrey and Elections Director Daniel Baxter told reporters Thursday in the room where ballots will be counted Tuesday that security has been stepped up ahead of the election and throughout Tuesday night since 2020 when Trump supporters leveled false allegations of voter fraud at the city .
“No one expected that, no one in the country, no one in the Department of Elections expected that or anticipated that,” Baxter said. ‘We knew it would be a challenge. 174,000 ballots had been counted. We were in the middle of the corona crisis. The world turned upside down. We had a turbulent America at the time, but we didn’t expect that. the kind of shenanigans that were going on at that time.”
Earlier this year, law enforcement agencies, civil defense officials and election administrators in Pennsylvania began meeting to coordinate how they will identify and combat election threats this cycle. Gov. Josh Shapiro created a task force after that state became a magnet for election fraud claims and failed lawsuits aimed at keeping Trump in power after his 2020 loss to Democrat Joe Biden.
The elections director in Cobb County, a suburb of Atlanta, hosted a training session with staff and law enforcement to devise a strategy for employee safety and vote counting.
There was a heavy police presence at Huntington Place in Detroit on Thursday as Winfrey and Baxter discussed voter turnout, which is expected to be between 51% and 55% — slightly above 2020 turnout. They also discussed absentee ballots, early voting and other aspects of the current election.
Winfrey told reporters that her office has been working with local police agencies, the Michigan attorney general’s office and the Justice Department on what she called a “comprehensive security plan throughout this week and the days ahead.”
“This plan will continue through election night to ensure the safety of our election workers and the integrity of the election process,” Winfrey said.
Metal detectors are located at the entrances to the hall where ballots are counted. To enter, public observers, vote challengers and the media will have to show their driver’s license or other identification.
Bulletproof glass has been installed at the city’s elections headquarters, while Winfrey, who is now accompanied by a Detroit police officer, said she no longer thinks this type of security is excessive.
“They came to my house in 2020 and threatened my life because they thought I had something to do with Trump losing,” Winfrey said of the former president’s supporters. “That’s when things changed for me.”
Baxter said the reason Detroit and some other cities that tend to vote Democratic are dogged by accusations and threats of fraud is “because we are a black city.”
Detroit is about 80% black.
“If you look at some of the attacks that have been made on communities like Philadelphia, Detroit, Atlanta, communities like that — that’s where black people live,” he said. “That’s where Black people are stewards of the process and that’s why we’re attacked so often.”
