Tensions rise in Detroit as GOP ‘challengers’ get vocal at vote-counting site

DETROIT - With Michigan’s 16 electoral votes becoming critical to the outcome of the election, tensions rose Wednesday as President Donald Trump’s campaign asked the courts to stop vote-counting in the state and Republican demonstrators loudly demanded access to a downtown venue here where ballots were being tallied.

The brief frenzy of activity came not long before Edison Research projected that Joe Biden, Trump's Democratic challenger, would win Michigan, which had been one of the pivotal remaining battlegrounds determining who would prevail in the bitterly fought election. Wednesday's tallying of Michigan's ballots stretched the outcome past Election Day, and those cast here, in a deeply blue city, pushed Biden's lead to nearly 70,000 votes with 98% of the ballots counted as of late in the day.

Trump has repeatedly assailed the voting process, making baseless claims of fraud, including in a string of Twitter posts since the voting ended, with the outcome unresolved and several states still counting ballots. On Wednesday, his campaign announced plans for legal challenges in Michigan and other key states.

While the Trump campaign took to court, a vocal group of would-be Republican Party election "challengers" gathered Wednesday afternoon at the TCF Center, a Detroit convention center where votes were being counted, to inveigh against how the process was unfolding.

Election challengers are people who monitor vote-counting on behalf of parties or candidates. The convention center had become a gathering spot for activists from both parties concerned about the close election, and calls have gone out on Facebook and in emails urging people to come fill those roles in Michigan.

Under Michigan law, only state residents can be challengers. After some disagreement at the convention center, out-of-state visitors had agreed to remain outside the counting perimeter.

But with Michigan's race nearly even and its electoral votes suddenly almost a necessity to take the presidency, a flood of people showed up. Elections officials capped the number who could go inside, amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and concerns about crowding in the venue. New volunteers were allowed to enter only to replace members of their own party, as elections officials are required to ensure parity.

Roughly equal numbers of challengers from both parties had been there early Wednesday, said Lawrence Garcia, a city attorney for Detroit. But by midafternoon, Garcia said, the center's sign-in book showed that more than 250 Democrats and 225 Republicans were inside.

"When we saw that, we said, 'Whoops, we'd better stop people from coming in until we get a better number,' " Garcia said.

On Wednesday afternoon, though, a group of would-be observers demonstrated loudly outside the room where ballots were being tallied, chanting "Stop the count!" They recited the Pledge of Allegiance and said a prayer.

Staff members at the site told them they could not enter, citing public health reasons, which seemed to embolden the group. As they huddled against windows lining the vote-counting room, the convention center began enforcing capacity limits for the building, keeping some outside the venue entirely.

Mark Davis, an attorney and one of the aspiring challengers, accused election officials of "shifting gears" by imposing the restrictions Wednesday.

"There has to be a rationale for it," Davis said, ticking off things he said showed that election officials were attempting to restrict the public's access to observe the count. "The problem is, there's shenanigans going on."

One of the challengers inside the room said Wednesday that some election workers were not allowing them to watch, blocking ballots with their bodies and telling them to get away. This person was not alleging widespread fraud but depicted a tense scene Wednesday during the loud activity.

While this was happening, police inside the room periodically moved toward the doors to hold the crowd back. Guards could be seen in social media videos blocking the entrance, while election workers inside partly covered the windows with white posters.

"A lot of people screamed and shouted, but they responded to the police when they told them to calm down," Garcia said.

At least four people were ejected in the afternoon, each of them met with applause from the elections staff. By 5 p.m., the crowd had died down and the city had moved forward with counting votes and made its way to military ballots.

"There were two or three hours where things were testy in the sense that people wanted to get in," Garcia said. "That's OK in a democracy."

Tim Griffin, an adjunct law professor at Liberty University who works for a nonprofit foundation promoting election integrity in Michigan and Minnesota, was one of the lawyers providing advice to GOP "challengers" in the hall. He urged more people to come to the venue.

In an interview Wednesday, Griffin said the environment at the convention center revealed a political bias that he thought needed to be remedied by litigation. Griffin said he was in Michigan to ensure that votes were counted fairly, but he described Detroit elections officials monitoring the process as rejecting legitimate concerns about how the ballots were counted.

"They were so aggressive denying our challenges," Griffin said, adding that elections officials are not supposed to be partisan. "We have to challenge this."

Other Republican lawyers in the hall said they also observed things that could be challenged in coming litigation, such as the way ballots were handled.

Democratic legal experts rejected the complaints from Griffin and others, saying that the Detroit operation was well run and followed state standards. Lawyer Christopher Trebilcock said the state has numerous checks on the integrity of the voting process and the security of ballots.

"The Trump campaign didn't complain in 2016 when the same procedures were used," he said. Trump narrowly won the state that year.

Democrats suggested the Trump campaign's lawsuit Wednesday was simply promoting a false narrative that the absentee-ballot process was riddled with fraud.

The lawsuit alleged impropriety in Michigan's vote-counting process, saying the state was "allowing absent voter ballots to be processed and counted without allowing challengers to observe the video of the ballot boxes into which these ballots are placed." It asked the court to stop the counting of all absentee ballots.

The lawsuit's plaintiffs were Trump's reelection campaign and a Michigan voter who the complaint said was a trained election challenger excluded from reviewing absentee ballots. Dana Nessel, Michigan's Democratic attorney general, defended the state's process.

"Michigan's elections have been conducted transparently, with access provided for both political parties and the public, and using a robust system of checks and balances to ensure that all ballots are counted fairly and accurately," Nessel said.

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Berman reported from Washington. The Washington Post’s Abigail Hauslohner, Derek Hawkins and Josh Dawsey in Washington contributed to this report.