Detroit appointed seven times more Democrat poll watchers than Republicans for its primary election, the Republican complaint states.
The Republican National Committee (RNC) is suing the Election Commission for the City of Detroit, alleging that it failed to hire enough Republican poll watchers for the state’s Aug. 6 primary election.
Michigan election law requires that the Board of Elections commissioners appoint “an equal number, as nearly as possible” of election inspectors from each major political party in every precinct.The city appointed a total of 2,337 Democratic election inspectors and 310 Republican election inspectors for the primary, according to a commission report the RNC and the Michigan Republican State Committee filed in their Aug. 21 complaint. The ratio of Democrats to Republicans was 7.5 to 1.
Of the 335 Wayne County precincts for which information was available, the RNC said 300 had inadequate numbers of Republican election inspectors.
“Even worse was the disparity with leadership positions, with chairpersons for only 32 of the 335 precincts being filled by Republicans,” the complaint states.
State law also requires that every precinct have at least one election inspector from each major party. However, the RNC found that 202 precincts did not appoint a single Republican election