Alharbi gains a handful of votes in mayoral ballot recount

Mayor-elect Adam Alharbi faces questions from media outlets after the recount of the mayoral election revealed that he won by a slightly larger vote margin of 11 votes. The recount revealed larger questions about how the election was supervised.

By Charles Sercombe
Mayoral candidate Muhith Mahmood’s call for a recount of ballots turned out to cost him votes.
Instead of losing by six-votes, he has now lost by 11 votes.
As of this moment, Adam Alharbi is the mayor-elect. He said he is ready to move on.
“Now I will focus on improving Hamtramck,” he told a gathering of reporters.
Alharbi will be the city’s second Yemeni-American and Muslim to hold the position of mayor in Hamtramck. Hamtramck’s majority voting bloc appears to be Yemeni-American.
The official mayoral election results are now: Alharbi, 2,071; Mahmood 2,060.
Mahmood is a Bangladesh-American.
The recount revealed something that could be of major concern: three of the city’s five precincts could not be recounted because of discrepancies between the number of ballots and the number of voters.
The results of those three precincts remained the same and have not changed.
The revelation of the three precincts in question raised further concerns about City Clerk Rana Faraj’s supervision of the election, and the fact that 37 ballots were discovered after the election that were not counted.
Faraj was put on paid suspension after the 37 ballots were discovered in her office that were not counted.
The Board of Canvassers was asked to count the ballots, but the Board’s vote on the matter was split 2-2, which effectively meant that the ballots could not be counted since it takes at least three votes in favor of a resolution.
At Tuesday’s recount, overseen by the Wayne County Board of Canvassers, Mahmood’s attorney, Mark Brewer, had harsh words for Faraj’s handling of the election.
“I’ve never seen a more mismanaged election,” Brewer said. “That office is not serving the citizens of Hamtramck. It needs to be fixed.”
Mahmood, whose first term on city council expires at the end of this year, has since filed a lawsuit to have those ballots counted. A court hearing on the matter will be heard today, Friday, Dec. 5, the day after The Review went to press.
Mahmood said he will not file a lawsuit against the city over the election, but on Facebook he was critical over how the election was conducted.
“It’s not about winning; it’s about the election being mishandled. Today, 30 percent of the ballots were not counted due to the clerk’s mismatched numbers,” Mahmood said. “Any of us could have gained more votes, and the outcome could have been completely different. … Altogether, this election has become a complete joke and an embarrassment to the process.”
Mahmood told The Review that Faraj “must be held accountable.”
The Board has referred the handling of the election to the Wayne County Prosecutor’s office and the State Attorney General for further review.
It is unclear what will ultimately happen in terms of Faraj’s employment status. Faraj had demanded $500,000 after being put on paid suspension, even though she had not been fired.
The council rejected that request.
Posted Dec. 5, 2025