In this small Michigan city surrounded by Detroit,

Hamtramck police and the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office are investigating stacks of absentee ballots that were improperly delivered before the Aug. 6 primary election… The controversy started when bundles of absentee ballots turned in at Hamtramck City Hall raised enough suspicion that the deputy city clerk called the police.

Residents voting absentee are required by state law to turn in the ballot themselves or have a household or family member do so. But the week before the Aug. 6 election, three men showed up separately at the Clerk’s Office with stacks of absentee ballots with return address handwriting in the same print, which didn’t match the voter signatures, said Hamtramck Deputy Clerk August Gitschlag.

“Protecting the integrity of the election is why they brought me here,” said Gitschlag, who joined the City Clerk’s Office in July, about filing the police complaint…

While the piles of absentee ballots were challenged, they still were counted in the primary election. The 46 questionable ballots wouldn’t change the outcome of the mayor’s race, in which the two highest vote getters were hundreds of ballots ahead of the next finisher.  However, in one City Council race, third-place finisher Daria Swint finished 26 votes behind the second-place candidate… Swint said Councilman Mohammed Hassan approached her in June and offered her 26 absentee ballots for the primary election.