More eyes on Hamtramck …

This truck was seen in town playing a report by the rightwing group Project Veritas about alleged ballot harvesting by two city councilmembers.

By Charles Sercombe
The allegations of ballot harvesting, exposed by the conservative media outlet Project Veritas, have caught the attention of another media outlet.
The conservative online magazine The Federalist – which is not part of the Federalist Society — amplified the findings of the report.
A person with Project Veritas secretly recorded former local officials and City Councilmembers Mohammed Hassan and Abu Musa about the allegations.
Both former City Clerk August Gitschlag and former Mayor Karen Majewski said the practice of a ballot harvesting is well-known.
Gitschlag was recorded saying:
“They go around the neighborhood with the AB (absentee ballot) applications, and they have people sign the application. They bully them and they give them their ballots. [They] say, ‘If you don’t vote for me your cousin has nowhere to live next year when he comes in.’ It’s ethnic communities… whoever gets here can run the show.”
Gitschlag helped in an investigation in a 2014 election where four Bangladeshi-Americans men were found guilty of a felony charge of ballot harvesting – which is an act involving a candidate handling ballots from those who are not related to them or living in their household and delivering them to city hall.
Unless someone is related to you or lives in your household, it is illegal to handle their ballot, such as take it to city hall or even to a mailbox.
Majewski said she believes she lost her re-election to Mayor Amer Ghalib due to ballot harvesting.
“I’m absolutely positive that that happened,” Majewski said her interview.
Both Gitschlag and Majewski said that although it was unknown to them that they were being recorded, they stand by what they said.
Hassan and Musa were recorded saying that they would agree to pick up ballots that had been harvested, although that was dangled by the interviewer who didn’t really have any ballots.
Both Hassan and Musa have said that Project Veritas presented a “one-sided” version of their conversation, and both have denied wrongdoing.
Since the last city council election, there have been rumors that agents from the Michigan Attorney General’s Office were investigating allegations of ballot harvesting here.
The AG’s office did not return calls by the Review. There have been no charges filed regarding the election.
Mayor Ghalib slammed the allegations, saying it is the work of the far-right and far-left to discredit him and the city council, who are all-male and all-Muslim.
“I think the far-right is coming together with the far-left to target Muslims in Hamtramck. The media outlet is far-right and the speakers and agents are far-left,” Ghalib told The Review.
“The former power structure is trying to come back to power in any way other than election, even if it takes them to act like a militia and to disrespect law and order, or to use their allies on the state level to abuse their power and target our community.”
Project Veritas said the allegations it reported is part of a widespread effort by Democrats to cheat in the elections.
Hamtramck has been known as a Democratic stronghold, but the Muslim community has criticized President Biden for his support of Israel and continued funding of Israel’s war in Gaza where about 50,000 civilians have died.
Ghalib and other community leaders urged voters here to withhold voting for Biden in the Democratic Primary Election. Biden’s primary effort was defeated in Hamtramck, but Biden carried the state.
Ghalib and others have hinted that they might support former President Trump in the November election. Biden has since dropped out from his re-election bid and Vice President Kamala Harris is now the Democratic presidential nominee.
She has called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and the release of Israeli hostages being held by the Palestinian military organization Hamas.
Posted Aug. 16, 2024