Wayne County election officials prepared to open 37 disputed absentee ballots that could still decide who runs Hamtramck, nearly a year after voters cast ballots in a mayor’s race decided by just 11 votes.
The Wayne County Election Commission was set to meet at noon on Oct. 16 to tabulate the ballots under a court order. Current Mayor Adam Alharbi defeated former City Council Member Muhith Mahmood in the November 2025 election and took office in January. The late-discovered ballots never entered the certified tally, and a separate residency fight still hangs over the seat.
CBS News Detroit reported that the ballots turned up after Election Day in the city clerk’s office and were left out of the final results after chain-of-custody concerns. The fight now sits at the center of Michigan election procedure, voter rights, and who may lawfully hold office.
Election workers found the 37 absentee ballots in the Hamtramck city clerk’s office after Election Day. Then-City Clerk Rana Faraj raised alarms about a break in the chain of custody. She testified that unauthorized individuals had entered her office while the ballots were stored there.
The Wayne County Board of Canvassers deadlocked 2-2 on whether to count them. That tie left the ballots outside the certified election results. Mahmood took the dispute to court, arguing that voters should not lose the right to have their ballots counted because of mistakes by election officials.
Alharbi’s side pressed security and chain-of-custody concerns. Those same integrity questions have driven other enforcement fights nationwide, including cases where federal prosecutors moved against alleged voter fraud schemes in multiple states.
In March, the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled that the ballots should be counted and reversed an earlier lower court decision. The appellate court pointed to Michigan’s long-standing democracy principle that generally protects eligible voters from losing their votes because of errors made by election officials.
Wayne County Circuit Judge Kathleen McCarthy ordered the ballots tabulated no later than Oct. 16. She also barred a quick finish if the numbers shift. If the new tally puts Mahmood ahead, the Wayne County Board of Canvassers cannot certify him as the winner without further court approval.
Another hearing was set for Thursday, Oct. 22. The judge is expected to take up both the ballot-counting dispute and a separate residency challenge Alharbi has pressed against Mahmood.
The math is tight. Assuming all 37 ballots hold valid votes for one of the two candidates, Mahmood would need at least 25 of them to overcome Alharbi’s 11-vote lead. No public results have been released on how those ballots break, or even how many will prove valid once opened.
Election expert Michael Brady told CBS News Detroit the situation stands out even among delayed contests.
"I haven't seen anything like this quite in this way. There certainly have been other races around the country. It's fairly rare, but you know, the contested elections that are not perhaps not fully resolved, or with all questions settled until sometime after the election. Though this is definitely, I would say, still an outlier in that regard."
Brady laid out the immediate fork in the road.
"There's a world in which they're counted, and they don't affect the overall result in terms of who the winner of the race is. There's another scenario where the 37 ballots are counted, and it does change, you know, who the winner of the race is."
While the ballots head toward a count, Alharbi is pursuing a separate legal challenge that questions whether Mahmood meets Hamtramck’s residency requirements for holding public office. Alharbi attorney Nabih Ayad has argued that Mahmood lives in Troy with his family rather than in Hamtramck. Mahmood has denied the allegations and maintains he resides in Hamtramck.
Mahmood attorney Mark Brewer has pressed the opposite fairness claim on the ballots themselves, arguing that exclusion unfairly denies voters their right to participate in the election. Eligibility rules for office and for the ballot box remain core integrity questions, the same terrain covered when the Supreme Court cleared expanded citizenship checks for voter rolls.
Brady flagged a timing defense that could matter in the residency case. Allegations about Mahmood’s residency surfaced months before the November 2025 election, yet the legal challenge was not filed until after voters went to the polls.
"There's a defense called laches, an equitable remedy in the law, that says you know, if you've got information, you can't wait forever on it."
He also described what happens if a sitting winner is later found ineligible.
"The fact is, there was an election, and the way that Hamtramck has it set up is that there's an election, and the winner of the election becomes mayor, and if that person is found to be not eligible because they're not a resident, it doesn't automatically default to second place. It's just a vacancy."
That vacancy path, Brady said, could force a runoff. Parallel eligibility fights have appeared elsewhere in recent election cases, including matters where prosecutors charged foreign nationals over illegal voting and where courts weighed who may cast a lawful ballot.
Investigators and the courts still must determine the actual contents of the 37 ballots and whether each vote is valid. Authorities have not publicly confirmed how the ballots will break between the candidates once counted.
The Oct. 22 hearing is expected to address both the tabulation fight and the residency challenge. Judge McCarthy’s order already blocks automatic certification of Mahmood if he pulls ahead. That keeps judicial control over any change in the certified winner.
Brady stressed that status quo remains one real ending.
"This could go in a lot of different directions, including, of course, maintaining status quo. And it is entirely possible that the current mayor is found to have won the race after these ballots are counted."
He also tied the case to a deeper Michigan principle about counting lawful votes even when officials err.
"Your vote does count, and one way or the other, I think there's a really important principle that's in play in this [lawsuit], and one that has a long history here in the state of Michigan."
Chain-of-custody gaps, delayed challenges, and eligibility rules all test whether local systems can finish a race cleanly. Similar pressure has shown up in other jurisdictions, from an Indian national indicted in Minnesota on illegal voting allegations to courtroom battles over noncitizen voting bans.
For now, Alharbi remains Hamtramck’s mayor. The Election Commission’s Oct. 16 count was the next concrete step ordered by the court. A later hearing will test whether a new lead can be certified and whether the residency claim can unsettle the office itself.
Brady warned that one path ends with no one seated by simple succession.
"There's a very real possibility that the end result would be a vacant seat in the mayorship that would then could require a runoff."
That prospect leaves city residents waiting on courts and canvassers to finish work that began on Election Day in November 2025. Election integrity fights continue to surface in multiple states, including a Florida matter where a Miami judge dismissed a noncitizen voting case while addressing a federal ban.
The 37 ballots, the 11-vote margin, the 2-2 canvass deadlock, and the residency claim now sit on the same calendar. Each piece can still move the outcome, keep the current mayor in place, or open a vacancy that forces voters back to the polls.
When ballots sit uncounted over chain-of-custody doubts and eligibility fights drag past inauguration day, the public is left measuring whether local election offices and courts can deliver a final, lawful result before trust erodes.
