DEARBORN, Mich. – A Dearborn resident filed a police report against the city’s clerk’s office as they were denied certain privileges as an election challenger.
Hassan Aoun came to Dearborn City Hall, where there are roughly half a dozen polling positions and the clerk’s counter where absentee ballots can get turned in.
The place was quite busy Monday, and a recently converted republican Aoun received training as a challenger and came to do his job, only to get relegated to the seating position set aside for watchers and challengers.
“There’s nothing to oversee. I’m sitting there, the overseeing is behind the counter, and they don’t want me to go behind the counter,” said Aoun.
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Aoun is following his training and the law, which does, in fact allow him the access he’s asking for -- so when the clerk’s office turned him away, he filed a police report and left.
“A challenger may ask to go behind the counter and if with our assistance they can observe, he or she can observe what we are doing, yes, but with our permission,” said George Darany, Dearborn’s city clerk.
Aoun said that’s not in the rules, and Darany said he should have been allowed in.
“If I was here, I would have allowed them behind the counter,” said Darany.
“I want to make sure there is no fraud,” said Aoun.
According to Darany, he said the clerk’s office didn’t do anything majorly wrong, and that if Aoun wants to come back and take a look at what is behind the counter, that’s fine.
Check out Dearborn’s election results below: