Guest Editorial: Why is the mayor silent on alleged election law violations?

By Scott Klein
The dark forces of American politics paid a visit to Hamtramck to have a look around.
It wasn’t the first visit, and undoubtedly it will not be the last. That an extreme right-wing website sent “investigators” to this place should surprise no one. Rumors of voter fraud, vote buying schemes, and hijinks at the polls have ebbed and flowed in the city for as long as Hamtramck has been a place.
Because of this, occasionally, somebody decides to look around and see what they can find. Over the past 25 years, several people have been convicted of elections crimes. When you have a record, some people pay extra attention to what you do.
So an East Coast extremist website decides to stop by and add to the belief that Detroit politics are rife with corruption, a place where votes are bought, and elections stolen, a narrative favored by the right-wing since 2020.
This was an opportunity for every elected official to stand against the practice of absentee ballot harvesting, to promise a vigorous police investigation, and to take a strong stand in the community at large against such practices.
That is the least of an expected response, and surely that would be the response of most elected officials put in a similar position. A bold politician might even call for the resignation of the two council members in question from the recent investigation.
But fragile male egos being what they are, that is not what happened. Instead, the mayor rejects the notion that this alleged crime has anything to do with him. He turned his attention to his predecessor, former mayor Karen Majewski.
Majewski is heard, in a conservation that was secretly recorded, saying that she believes that she lost the election because of ballot harvesting.
In a case of quien es mas macho, the mayor rehashes the math of the election, and then dares Majewski to a rematch. Mind you, the subject of the story is two council members who are apparently violating Michigan election law.
To top things off, the mayor channels Hillary Clinton by proclaiming a vast right- and left-wing conspiracy, presumably led in part by Majewski, to “target Muslims in Hamtramck.”
Never mind what the council members did on their own. Remember, the first reaction of one council member was to say, “This is a trap.”
Despite this uncharacteristic awareness of the moment, he continued into the trap, sort of like when one throws a slice of bread into the cage to catch a dog. Not to mention that this all was verified by another councilmember’s ramblings.
Never mind that neither of these elected officials, both of whom swore oaths to uphold the law, failed to report what happened to the city clerk, or the police department.
That’s what an honest person does, so there’s at least a chance the persons involved are arrested. Never mind that the only way to uphold the integrity of elections is to actively move against those who would undermine them for their own gain.
As long as the mayor, as the elected leader of city government, believes that actual and documented allegations of election crimes have nothing to do with him, he will be dogged by questions of his legitimacy, not just in the last election but in subsequent elections as well.
And those who propagate these ongoing delusions of widespread (Democratic Party only!) election fraud will hang their hat on the two council members that the mayor, for some unknown reason, has chosen to protect.
(Scott Klein is a former member of the Hamtramck City Council.)
Posted Aug. 16, 2024