Detroit denies ‘nefarious activity’ after voting surveillance video deleted

Detroit’s government said there was no “nefarious activity” after deleting surveillance footage of a ballot box in the city.

The city had received a request for information from a local man who believed he saw something on the unmanned box in August. However, the man was later told he could not watch the video because it had been deleted.

The Republican National Committee is suing the Detroit City Department of Elections, saying it violated the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by deleting surveillance video of an “absentee ballot box.”

The RNC lawsuit is reminiscent of 2020, when the Trump campaign alleged voter fraud in Michigan and other states. Michigan is one of seven swing states in this year’s election.

In a response, Detroit acknowledged that the footage should not have been deleted but said its staff had to process thousands of requests for information each year.

It guarantees that “no nefarious activity took place at the locations where video recordings were requested.”

“Our own failure to respond to FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] “The timely filing gave the RNC the opportunity to file a frivolous lawsuit,” the city said in a statement. “The filing is intended to cause embarrassment and undermine confidence in our ability to conduct a problem-free election.”

“The City of Detroit receives nearly 9,000 FOIA requests each year. We work to accommodate each request and in this case have advised the applicant that we would need more time. When we found the video, it had already been reused, but the requested footage had not.” We work every day to improve our processes and our goal remains to retain all data in accordance with the policy.

According to the RNC lawsuit, Jonathan Koch, a Kent County resident, saw something unusual at the drop box at Wayne County Community College’s Northwest Campus at 8200 W. Outer Drive on Aug. 8, but the lawsuit doesn’t say what he did supposedly saw.

Koch filed a request for information on August 20, requesting that the city provide surveillance footage of the mailbox.

On September 16, the city responded to Koch, saying it had automatically deleted the footage after 30 days, even though Koch’s request came only 12 days after the August 8 incident.

The RNC said Detroit violated Michigan’s Freedom of Information Act.

“Deleting drop box surveillance footage while a FOIA request is pending for it is an attack on transparency,” RNC Chairman Michael Whatley said in a statement. “This breach of trust is precisely why confidence in our elections is declining. We will hold Detroit accountable because this secrecy has no place in a fair and secure election – Michiganders deserve far better.”

The extent to which the Trump campaign allegedly attempted to disrupt the vote count in Detroit in 2020 only recently became known.

On October 2, 2024, prosecutor Jack Smith released a dossier of evidence in Donald Trump’s election fraud case.

The dossier states that on November 4, 2020, when vote counts in Detroit were not in Trump’s favor, the campaign official texted a Trump agent to incite a riot among his supporters outside the counting center.

“Make them a riot,” he allegedly wrote, and “Do it!!!!”

Newsweek sent an email to the Trump campaign on Monday seeking comment.

Trump was indicted on four counts in Washington, DC for allegedly working to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the lead-up to the riots at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. The Republican presidential candidate pleaded not guilty and said the case was part of a political witch hunt.