Trump and Harris campaign in Sun Belt states out West

November 1, 2024 Vaseline blog 0

Trump and Harris campaign in Sun Belt states out West

Detroit City Clerk Janice Winfrey is anticipating 290,000 Detroit residents will vote in the 2024 election — a 53% turnout expectation that would surpass 2020’s 51% citywide turnout.

The 2024 general election is the first in which Michigan voters can vote early in-person, with 22,000 casting ballots so far and 81,000 returning absentee ballots.

In addition to higher turnout, the city has heightened its security, with 10 officers strategically located inside the absentee tabulation center where chaotic protests broke out in 2020 “in the event that we have a disturbance or someone violates or deviates from Michigan election law.”

Added security precautions, like installing bullet-resistant glass at the city’s department of elections, are necessary due to the unrest in 2020, said elections director Daniel Baxter.

“The world was upside down. We had a turbulent America going on at the time, but we didn’t anticipate the type of shenanigans that occurred during that time,” he told reporters. “We expect and hope for the best, and we’ve planned for the worst.”

Winfrey, the city clerk, said she once thought her personal police escort was “overkill.”

“But when they came to my home, they came to my home in 2020 and threatened my life because they thought that I had something to do with the fact that Trump lost, then it became different for me,” she said.

Asked during a press conference about the focus on voter fraud in democratic cities like Detroit, Baxter said race is a factor.

“It’s because we are a Black city,” said Baxter. “I think that when you look at some of the attacks that have been made on communities like Philadelphia, Detroit, Atlanta, those types of communities, that’s where Black people live, that’s where Black people are administrators over the process, and that is why we get attacked so often.”

Due to a measure passed during the 2022 midterms, local clerks in Michigan can opt to pre-process absentee ballots ahead of election day, which officials hope will lead to faster results and fewer conspiracy theories on election night.