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Detroit police will be on hand for ballot-counting at Huntington Place

By and David Komer online producer
Published  November 7, 2022 10:54pm EST
Election
FOX 2 Detroit

Huntington Place election officials get ready for Tuesday's ballot count

In the meantime, those on either side of the big ballot items are making their final push going down to the wire.

DETROIT (FOX 2) - At the Huntington Place Convention Center in Downtown Detroit. Election officials are readying for their official count of absentee ballots expecting to count 75,000 to 80,000 of them tomorrow- and security is top of mind.

FOX 2: "What guarantees can you give to folks out there that this whole process is in fact safe and secure?"

"Well, you know we have multiple conversations with several organizations - one, in particular, is the Detroit Police Department," said Daniel Baxter, Detroit elections official. "We’ve had conversations with them. Chief White is going to make sure that we have a police presence here at Huntington Place to ensure that every poll worker is secure."

In the meantime, those on either side of the big ballot items are making their final push going down to the wire.

One such push is happening on things like Proposal 3's abortion question.

Sommer Foster is with one of the groups leading the Reproductive Freedom For All campaign.

"We’re saying to voters in Michigan who believe in the right for women to choose when and how to parent a child, that you need to vote yes on Proposal 3," said Foster. "And so we’re having those conversations with supporters of our initiative and making sure that they know they need to get out to vote tomorrow."

Opponents of Prop 3 are busy too, continuing to call the measure too extreme.

We spoke with Protect Life Michigan when 3 first went on the ballot.

"This proposal doesn’t just go back to the days of Roe V Wade," said Christen Pollo. "It repeals parental consent laws. It repeals Michigan’s partial birth abortion ban."

Proposal 2 is also a testy one.  It would add several election rules to the Michigan Constitution if passed - including continuing to let registered voters who don’t have state identification sign a form verifying who they are.

"What we’re telling voters is regardless of where you are on the political spectrum, where you live, who you are, these are voting rights that are fundamental to voters - and so Proposal 2 really is protecting all of our rights and making sure that we all have access to the ballot," said Nancy Wang, Voters Not Politicians.

"If you support voter ID which is 80 percent of Michiganders, you have to oppose this proposal, because this is going to truly make it unconstitutional for a true voter ID law in Michigan to be passed," said Jeffrey Litten, Secure MI Vote.