Losing candidate in Hamtramck mayoral race sues to have 37 untabulated votes counted

Despite being certified last week, the election for mayor of Hamtramck may be far from over.

City Council member Muhith Mahmood, the candidate who lost the Nov. 5 mayoral election by just six votes, is suing both the City of Hamtramck and the Wayne County Board of Canvassers to have more than three dozen uncounted votes included in the final total. The case has the potential to reverse the outcome of the election, a victory by engineer Adam Alharbi.

Due to what election officials have said was human error, 37 absentee ballots in Hamtramck were separated from the others and not counted on election night. When the ballots were discovered — opened, but still in their envelopes — in the city clerk’s office the following day, they were immediately sealed and taken to the county elections department.

But Hamtramck Clerk Rana Faraj later said three non-election officials had walked into the clerk’s sealed office on election night before the ballots were discovered, effectively breaking the chain of custody for those ballots and raising questions about their security. The Wayne County Board of Canvassers ultimately deadlocked on whether to count the ballots, resulting in their exclusion from the official results.



https://www.votebeat.org/michigan/2025/12/01/hamtramck-mayor-election-uncounted-ballots-lawsuit/