WASHINGTON — Green Party nominee Jill Stein’s presidential vote recount in Michigan may have turned up massive voter irregularities — in the Democratic stronghold of Detroit.
Now it’s Republican leaders who are demanding an investigation to determine why a third of the city’s voting machines registered more ballots than actual voters, the Detroit News reported.
Ruth Johnson, the Republican secretary of state, is launching an audit.
Republican state Sen. Patrick Colbeck called the probe a good start on the suspicious results turned up in Detroit, which Hillary Clinton won with 95 percent of the vote.
The Detroit News found voting scanning machines at 248 of the city’s 662 precincts — 37 percent — tabulated more ballots than the number of actual voters counted in the poll books.
“There’s always going to be small problems to some degree, but we didn’t expect the degree of problem we saw in Detroit. This isn’t normal,” Krista Haroutunian, chairwoman of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers, told the paper.
The partial statewide recount that ended Friday by court order did not change Donald Trump’s victory in Michigan, which he won by more than 10,000 votes. The fresh tally of 2.1 million ballots turned up a net difference of 102 more votes for Clinton.
The new audit is aimed at finding out whether human error, fraud or negligence is to blame for the mismatched irregularities in Detroit. The investigation could take about three weeks.