A citizen-led investigation examining nearly one million documents from Detroit’s November 2020 election has uncovered that 12.4% of absentee ballots from taxpayer-subsidized housing facilities were counted without official envelopes required by Michigan law.

Massive Volunteer Investigation Uncovers Irregularities

Over 100 volunteers led by New Jersey resident Yehuda Miller and Check My Vote founder Phani Mantravadi are reviewing records that Detroit officials initially refused to release. A judge finally forced the city to turn over the documents after Miller’s Freedom of Information Act requests were repeatedly denied. The team has digitized and sequenced over 155,000 absentee ballot envelopes, examining each one for irregularities. Volunteers flag questionable envelopes that Detroit officials approved in 2020, with findings checked multiple times before public release.

Legal Requirements Allegedly Ignored

Michigan law MCL 168.764a mandates that every absentee ballot must be returned in the official state-issued return envelope containing the voter’s signature certificate. Clerks cannot ignore this requirement or process ballots without proper envelopes. The investigation found examples including a voter registered at a confirmed non-existent address on Auburn Street who successfully received and voted an absentee ballot. Another envelope showed a German address on the USPS delivery label, yet was dated as received by Detroit officials weeks before the signature date.

Secretary of State’s Role Under Scrutiny

In 2020, Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson was admonished by a judge for mailing 7.7 million unsolicited voter applications to every eligible voter without proper approval. She also directed local clerks to ignore signature verification requirements during Michigan’s largest mail-in election, when proper signatures and strict chain-of-custody rules were essential. The investigation questions whether Detroit City Clerk Janice Winfrey knew about absentee ballots being counted without proper envelopes, a serious violation of Michigan election law.

What Comes Next

The investigation team plans to release the full discrepancy between the number of absentee ballots received versus the number of official envelopes submitted by Detroit. The current sample from taxpayer-subsidized housing represents only a portion of the complete findings. Multiple voters flagged in the investigation have since been removed from Michigan voter rolls. The volunteers continue their meticulous work, entering critical data on every questionable ballot envelope that Detroit officials processed during the 2020 election.