Lansing — Two of Wayne County’s top elected officials have joined a chorus of Democrats calling for an independent audit of the party’s April 19 convention voting results.
In a letter to the party leadership Wednesday, Kym Worthy, Wayne County’s prosecutor, and Warren Evans, Wayne County’s executive, endorsed a request to have an outside group examine the vote from the gathering where Democrats selected candidates for attorney general, secretary of state and board positions at the state’s three largest universities.
Evans cited “mounting evidence from delegates who attest that their votes were either not counted at all or others who attest that they voted remotely in violation of party rules.”
“In sorting this out, the party’s appeals committee must be fully transparent to give confidence in the process,” the county executive said in the new letter.
Wayne County is Michigan’s most populous county and a Democratic stronghold. Statewide elections in Michigan “run through” Wayne County, Evans said in the letter.
The announcement by Evans and Worthy might put additional pressure on the leaders of the Michigan Democratic Party. The party’s appeals committee is scheduled to decide on June 2 how to move forward after several prominent Democrats, including Attorney General Dana Nessel, called for an independent audit of the convention’s results.
The Detroit News has identified one Democrat who acknowledged voting from outside of the Detroit convention hall, despite the party’s rules on in-person voting, and 10 Democrats who said they voted at the convention but whose votes weren’t reflected in the initial tallies.
State Sen. Sylvia Santana of Detroit, who narrowly lost a convention race to be nominated for a seat on the Michigan State University Board of Trustees, has appealed her defeat. Santana’s campaign contended there were “material errors” in the convention’s vote-counting process and requested an audit of all the results by an outside firm.
According to the initial results, previously obtained by The Detroit News, Santana finished in third place by about 15 weighted votes out of more than 5,600 votes for the second of two nominations for the MSU board.
The party used an electronic voting system at the convention that allowed people to vote over their cellphones or tablets. People were supposed to attend the convention in person to cast a ballot.
Santana’s campaign had flagged more than 200 voters who, it said, participated from outside the convention at Huntington Place in Detroit, based on location data from the internet connection they used.
But party leadership has stood by the results of the convention and argued that Internet Protocol addresses alone weren’t sufficient to disqualify a voter.
“We are confident in the results of the endorsement convention conducted on April 19, 2026, and, therefore, ask the appeals committee to dismiss appellants’ claims,” a Michigan Democratic Party filing said earlier this month.
In the new letter, submitted by Santana’s campaign, Worthy, Wayne County’s prosecutor, said the voting process at the convention was “clearly flawed.”
“And democracy requires full transparency and accountability,” Worthy added. “This is the right thing to do especially in these times.”
The problems at the Democratic convention have helped ignite a conversation in the Legislature about whether attorney general and secretary of state candidates should continue to be nominated at party meetings, instead of primary elections.
Worthy endorsed the effort to switch the nominations to the August primary. The change would make it so “everyone has a chance to be heard,” Worthy said.
“This is what we have always stood for as Democrats,” Worthy said.
In the new letter, penned by Santana’s lawyer, Melvin Butch Hollowell, Santana also offered to pay for the independent audit of the convention.
cmauger@detroitnews.com
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Top Wayne County Democrats call for independent audit of convention
Reporting by Craig Mauger, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
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