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You could see the tension even before he walked into the counting room in Detroit. A heated group gathered at the entrance of the building was told officials and police to move away.
One official warned me that the atmosphere was “dangerous,” explaining that the crowd of people trying to enter were “election observers” or “election challengers,” as they are known.
These people control the count and often belong to the opposing political party. “There are many positions,” he told me.
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At a second internal entrance to the counting room, another group is also trying to gain access. Some are angry and some begin to scream.
In the short time since we’ve been here, the police have escorted at least three people out of the hall to cheers and applause. They’re being fired for intimidating the vote counters.
Officials have begun covering the hallway windows to try to keep the crowd outside from interrupting the count; some responded by banging on the windows and officials on the opposite side have been removing the blankets.
Police escort ‘electoral contender’ out of counting room in Detroit
William Hartmann of the Wayne County Canvassing Board is here to monitor the integrity of the Republican election.
He explains that all the parties have electoral observers in the room who observe the count: “Each political group has 134 contenders present.”
He says, “They say we’re full-fledged now and those people are still out there. Republicans can come in and monitor.
“The problem is that they don’t count the people coming in and going out, so how do you know how many people come in and how many go out?”
Since we’ve been here, the Trump campaign has sued a Michigan court to stop the count until they are granted access that they consider significant to observe the count here.
Michigan is projected for Joe Biden and the Trump campaign now alleges wrongdoing. Meanwhile, we see Detroit police escorting Republican election watchers from the tallying room to intimidate them.
