DEARBORN HEIGHTS – A Wayne County Circuit Court Judge dismissed claims of voter fraud involving absentee ballots in Dearborn Heights on Wednesday, August 6, less than 24 hours after the polls were closed and the absentees were halted from being counted.

Judge Robert J. Colombo, Jr. heard testimony from Dearborn Heights City Clerk Walter Prusiewicz, who has been under hot water after submitting a resignation letter to the city last month amid allegations of voter suppression targeting the local Arab American community. 

Prusiewicz later back-pedaled his resignation, which resulted in outcries from local civil rights groups who asked city officials to not accept Prusiewicz’s change of mind.

Prusiewicz claimed that a batch of absentee ballot applications were dropped off to the city clerk’s office and that he contacted the state when he realized that the deliverers did not sign off on them. He indicated that two men, who identified themselves as being part of State Representative David Knezek’s camp, had dropped off the absentee applications. 

Knezek, who won the democratic primary in the 5th district senate race, denied the claims, stating that his campaign has never solicited an absentee ballot drive. 

Upon contacting the Michigan Bureau of Elections, Prusiewicz was told to process the applications since his office had already accepted them and had failed to get the names of the deliverers. 

However, dozens of residents claimed that they did not receive their absentee ballots, prompting ADC-MI to launch accusations of voter suppression against the city clerk’s office and demanding that the state oversee the election and remove Prusiewicz from his post immediately. 

Michigan Bureau of Elections liaison Sally Williams defended Prusiewicz’s actions, stating that there was suspicion of voter fraud and that he was following proper protocol. 

The process of validating absentee ballot application involves matching a voter’s signature on the application request with his or her signature on the voter I. D. card.

Last week, Dearborn Heights City Councilwoman Mary Horvath stated that she had been part of the validation process at the city clerk’s office, adding that about 20 percent of the applications’ signatures did not match with the signatures on the voter I. D. cards. Her involvement in the validation process has since been questioned, with many local residents pointing out that she had publicly endorsed a candidate in the race and should have never been behind the counter at the city clerk’s office to begin with.  

Williams said that, by law, a person other than the voter, or a member of his of her family, who delivers an absentee ballot application must be asked to do so by the voter. 

It is also a violation of the Michigan Election Law for an individual to offer to return a voter’s absentee ballot application to the clerk’s office. Williams had claimed those involved could have faced criminal charges. 

On the morning of the primary, Knezek’s opponent, State Rep David Nathan, filed a temporary injunction to prevent the Dearborn Heights City Clerk’s office from counting any of the absentee ballots because of the possibility of voter fraud. Despite the fact that the questioned batch of applications were requesting absentee ballots, Nathan said he feared that campaigns were soliciting actual absentee ballots, prompting him to file a temporary injunction at the 11th hour. 

At about 1 p.m. on Tuesday, the city clerk’s office was instructed to immediately stop counting absentee ballots, despite the fact that some of them had already been tallied. The results for the elections in Dearborn Heights remained in limbo until late Wednesday evening.

During the hearing that morning, Judge Colombo reviewed the absentee ballots and stated that he found no evidence of voter fraud, urging that the absentee ballots be counted at once.

“There is absolutely no evidence in this case that there has been one fraudulent ballot submitted by absentee ballot,” Colombo said. 

Prusiewicz told the judge that under the advice of state officials, he issued the  absentee ballots to all but 35 of the applicants. Those denied were either not registered voters, no longer Dearborn Heights residents or their signatures did not match those on file with the clerk’s office. 

Aside from the batches of application requests in question, Prusiewicz claimed that he also found additional application requests that were invalid for other reasons, including applicants who were first time voters. Under state law, first time voters are prohibited from voting through absentee ballots. He said those voters were notified through mail to come to City Hall in person. 

While there was no actual number given, several hundred ballots had remained in limbo until the judge’s ruling on Wednesday afternoon. ADC-MI Director Fatina Abdrabboh  said the ruling all the more proves that the city clerk’s office had engaged in misconduct. 

“The judge’s complete dismissal of voter fraud speaks volumes about the pretense we have known all along  that the city of Dearborn Heights is putting forward,” Fatina Abdrabboh told The Arab American News. “The real issue has emerged. Arab American votes in Dearborn Heights were suppressed, were misplaced or were eliminated, and those facts loom large over the city.” 

Abdrabboh continues to question why some residents never received their absentee ballots, even after the state had told Prusiewicz to send them out. She believes there was a two week window between when the state had given him the green-light, and when the ballots were actually mailed out. 

Last week ADC-MI released surveillance footage of Prusiewicz traveling with the alleged batch of absentee ballots outside of the city clerk’s office. He is captured on video taking the alleged batch of folders into a restaurant and leaving them unattended while he went on a bathroom break. State laws prohibit the clerk from taking completed applications outside of the clerk’s office. 

Abdrabboh said there was a larger number of absentee ballots this year because of the holy month of Ramadan, which prohibits Muslims from traveling. The holy month came to an end on July 28. Many local residents had planned to travel out of the state or out of the country in August and were looking to vote through absentee ballots. 

She stressed that local residents simply partook in a voter drive initiative to ensure that votes were cast before they traveled out of the state. 

However, many of those ballots were not mailed until after ADC-MI launched accusations against the clerk’s office. Many residents did not get a chance to vote both because of the delayed process and because they had already left the state. 

Abdrabboh said she was extremely disappointed by the state’s response to charges of voter suppression targeting the Arab American community. ADC-MI was joined by the Arab American Civil Rights League (ACRL) and the Council on American Relations of Michigan (CAIR-MI) last Saturday in front of City Hall in asking that the state oversee the city’s elections. 

“The damage done to already disenfranchised voters is beyond measure,” she said. “The old dirty trick of alleging voter fraud to validate claims of voter suppression was squashed by the judges’ ruling this week. These are just diverged tactics to derail people from voting.”

Despite calls from local civil rights group to have Prusiewicz step down, he still acted as the city clerk on the day of the primary. The state sent officials to monitor the clerk’s office, but Prusiewicz told Judge Colombo that he “administered the elections from his house” because he was sick.