News Release
Detroit, MI – Scotty Boman, founder of Detroit Residents Advancing Civilian Oversight (D.R.A.C.O.). Appears to have been unsuccessful in preventing the Charter Revision (Proposal R) from passing, but he hasn’t given up on his mission to preserve the Detroit Board of Police Commissioners (BOPC).
On September 30th he announced that he would be holding a candidate forum for Charter Commission Candidates, with the future of the Board of Police Commissioners being a central topic. The forum will be held on Sunday on October 14th at the Samaritan Center 5555 Conner St, Detroit, MI 48213.
DRACO also sent questionnaires to Detroit Charter Commission (DCC) candidates, with assurances that the results would be well publicized. According to Boman,
“We want the public to make informed decisions. If more people were aware of Proposal R, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, but some DCC candidates have already come out in favor of preserving or even expanding on, the elected BOPC. DRACO is an educational organization, and we want to make sure voters know which DCC candidates support civilian oversight and the right of Detroiters to elect their own Police Commissioners.”
Boman isn’t convinced that the Proposal R (the ballot question that opened the Charter for revision) passed in a fair election. He and two other Detroit residents, Gregg Newsom and Lucinda Darrah, successfully petitioned for a recount of some Detroit precincts. On September 6th they attempted to recount 65 of Detroit’s 503 precincts, but were only able to recount 61 of them. The measure had reportedly won by 184 votes, but the challenges were able lower that difference to 173. However a much larger number of votes could not be recounted. Four precincts were said to be “uncountable.” The number of ballots in those precincts was 520, much larger than the difference between “Yes” and “No” votes.
Michigan election law allows results to stand when discrepancies between log books, machine counts, or the physical number of ballots renders a precinct “uncountable.” In one case, two precincts that were stored in the same “sealed” ballot box were missing 38 of the ballots that were on record as having been placed in the box.
Furthermore a few different voters had reported that they could not find the proposal on their ballots, and one member of the community swore that election officials claimed the proposal would be on the General Election ballot. As a result Boman filed a request on September 26th that Attorney General Bill Schuette seek a court order nullifying the results of the election (as pertains to Proposal R). In the filing Boman stated,
“In spite of irregularities many times as serious as those needed to change the outcome of the election, the Wayne County board of canvassers upheld the results without organizing an investigation into the cause of the irregularities or how those irregularities could affect the outcome of the election. In so doing they have usurped the right of the people to approve or disapprove of the charter since a true and proper result cannot be determined as the number of uncountable ballots will change the outcome and result.”
If the Attorney General fails to act within 30 days, the matter will be passed on to the circuit court. Boman is seeking an attorney to take the action to that level.
Detroit Residents Advancing Civilian Oversight 