Michigan city councilman caught on camera stuffing election drop box with absentee ballots days before primary
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
A Michigan city council member was caught on camera stuffing an election drop box with apparent absentee ballots just days before he won his re-election bid in a local primary.
Hamtramck City Council member Abu Musa was seen in the passenger seat of a car on Aug. 1 handing stacks of paper to the car’s driver, who then dumped them into a nearby ballot box, footage obtained by Local 4 appears to show .
Musa held on to his re-election spot in the primary four days later on Aug. 5, beating out 11 other candidates with 1,129 votes.
But only 286 of those votes were cast on Election Day — with 843 being cast by absentee ballot, the Daily Mail reported.
Musa would have placed fifth without the absentee ballots, according to the Mail.
Footage of the ballot box dump emerged earlier in August just a day after two Hamtramck council members were arraigned on election fraud charges over a 2023 investigation.
That investigation was sparked after a city clerk noted absentee ballots were being dropped off in large bundles and filled out with suspiciously similar handwriting.
And while Musa was named in the investigation, he was not charged.
But, along with another member of the city council, he is at the center of an investigation into whether he’s actually a resident of Hamtramck — something required to hold his city council position.
He has denied those allegations, Local 4 reported.
The newly released footage of the ballot box stuffing was taken as a part of that investigation, Michigan State Police confirmed.
“You can [turn in more than one ballot], but there’s a big caveat as to who, whose ballot you can return,” Oakland County Clerk Lisa Brown told WXWZ .
“If it’s an immediate family member or you co-inhabit with somebody, it doesn’t have to be in a romantic way, but if you co-inhabit with someone, you can return their absentee ballots,” she added.
Musa did not respond to requests for comment on the footage.
Tags
Who is online
122 visitors
Who could ever imagine this would happen?
System worked, he was caught.
So they overturned his election? He's no longer on the council?
How should I know? He's not in my district. Ask the person seeding this article.
I assumed you read the article before commenting. My bad.
So I'm wrong? He wasn't caught?
Now tell us what happened to him and whether his election was overturned.
What difference does that make? He was caught on camera putting absentee ballots in.
Unfortunately for all you whiners, that is perfectly legal unless you can prove the ballots were fraudulent and not him just helping out a bunch of people by delivering their ballots for them. You understand that the law allows him to do that. Don't you?
So much for the system works huh?
If you believe a guy dumping ballots with "suspiciously similar handwriting" who received 80% of his support from these ballot dumps won the election fair and square, you are telling on yourself.
We all know the system doesn't work for certain people like politicians or else a certain 34 count felon would not have gotten off with no punishment.
And yet you're the one with implications of guilt with no evidence to back them up.
It's amusing to watch you talk in circles. Your first post was literally "system worked. he was caught"
ith implications of guilt with no evidence to back them up.
Lol. You go from "he was caught" to "there's no evidence he did anything wrong." Classic.
Do you deny it worked? Just because it didn't have the outcome you lusted for doesn't mean it didn't work.
You do understand that it is all a part of the system? He was caught stuffing a bunch of ballots. The law says that he can do that with legal ballots. Therefore the system worked. He was exposed for doing something questionable, but since it was not apparently illegal he was exonerated.
So unless your "system" was to punish innocent people for the mere reason that you do not like them, the system worked.
Lol. Do you think your flounderings aren't transparent? You literally started with "he was caught" and then admitted you had no idea what had actually happened.
Yet you have failed multiple times to address anything I stated.
I can bet that Trump and Republicans will use this to help in their quest to end mail-in ballots. I know several people who would have a very difficult time waiting in line in order to vote due to their physical issues. I'm in the same boat, bad knees would cause me to be in pain if I stand for too long. I can agree that tightening up the rules around it is a good thing but I do not want the mail-in ballot process tossed out. Too many people depend on it.
And not all who depend on it are Democrats. /s
Anyone can request an absentee ballot in Michigan. No excused needed. Prove your bona fides in the application and it gets mailed to you. Or you can pick it up at your polling place.
Easy peezy.
Same in Arizona.
I've done some more research into this and I doubt that Washington will be able to eliminate mail-in ballots. The Constitution is very clear that the process to manage voting is left to the individual states, and only Congress can make broad changes. The President cannot make such changes. So any EO that he signs for this will IMO be quickly overturned in court and SCOTUS will not back his play on this.
No matter what our friends on the left say, that isn’t goal. The goal is to eliminate potential voter fraud. Michigan has done that with their application if the Clerks are doing their job.
A big “if” depending on the county.
While the Democrats are using this as a talking point (always politically popular to gin up the fear), Trump has stated he will lead the effort to eliminate mail-in ballots and would like to do it before the 2026 elections.
He has said that states are only an agent of the federal government in counting and tabulating the vote. Hard to accept that his only goal is to eliminate voter fraud when he says he wants to get rid of mail-in ballots.
As I said above, he won't be able to via an Executive Order. It would take an act of Congress to do so and as this is not a tax and spending bill Republicans cannot use the budget reconciliation process. As such they will either need to gain some Democrat Senators to vote for it or use the nuclear option to allow for a simple majority to pass it. And if they do that, all I can say is holy shit as the next Senate will continue to use it regardless of the party in the majority. And we think Washington is shitty now, just wait to see how they can mess up our lives if that happens.
Just wait until democrats get rid of the filibuster. Then all sorts of legislation like that will get passed.
Not the sharpest tool in the shed I guess.