Unresolved election matters from November are ongoing

Will Mayor Adam Alharbi hang on to his position? An appeal to the state supreme court may soon decide the fate of Alharbi, and whether mayoral hopeful Muhith Mahmood can pull an upset.

By Charles Sercombe
Hamtramck’s mayoral election is still not over, and it doesn’t appear it will be settled any time soon.
Mayor Adam Alharbi is appealing a state appeals court decision to have a Wayne County Circuit Court reconsider its decision to not count 37 ballots from last November’s election.
The appeals court had ruled that the ballots should be counted. It’s not known how long it will take the state supreme court to decide whether to consider Alharbi’s appeal.
The ballots have been a point of contention between Alharbi and mayoral hopeful, and former city councilmember, Muhith Mahmood.
Alharbi is insisting that the ballots cannot be counted because they were discovered in the city clerk’s office a day after the election. Alharbi says the ballots can’t be counted because the ballots were opened, and then left, in an unsecure area where anyone in the clerk’s office could have tampered with them.
A Wayne County Circuit Court judge ruled in favor of Alharbi, but Mahmood appealed that decision, saying that not counting the ballots is unconstitutional because those voters would be disenfranchised through no fault of their own.
Alharbi has already been serving as mayor for the past four months.
The ballots came from precinct 2, which is comprised of predominantly Bengali voters.
Since Mahmood is also Bengali, the thought is he could turn out to be the winner in the election because he would likely win the majority of those votes.
The mayoral election was a close one. Mahmood initially lost the election by only six votes. A recount of the ballots, not including the contested ones, resulted in Alharbi winning by a slightly larger margin of 11 votes.
Even if Mahmood ends up winning the election, Alharbi has also is challenging Mahmood’s qualification to hold elected office in Hamtramck, saying that he is a non-resident who actually lives in Troy.
Mahmood has admitted that his wife and family live in Troy but says that he lives in Hamtramck. He has said that he is not divorced or separated from his wife.
An internal city investigation into his residency, as well as that of Councilmember Abu Musa, alleged that neither live in Hamtramck. The investigation said Mahmood lives in Troy, and Musa lives in Warren with his wife and family.
Both deny the allegations of not being residents.
In other election-related news, the ongoing felony election fraud case against Councilmember Mohammed Hassan has been pushed back further from his April court date to June 29.
Hassan is being charged, through the Monroe County Prosecutor’s office, with three felonies:
• Forging a voter’s signature on an absentee ballot application
• Forgery
• Making a false statement on an application for an absentee ballot
The request for a delay in the trial came from the prosecutor’s office. Monroe Assistant Prosecutor Ragan Lake said she asked for an adjournment in order “to look into hiring an expert in forensic document analysis.”
The Review also reached out to Hassan’s attorney, Scott Ruark, for comment but he did not respond.
Posted April 24, 2026