The city of Hamtramck, Michigan, has a long and disturbing history of election corruption—one that Democrats have consistently ignored.
Just three days before Michigan’s August primary, surveillance footage obtained by 7 News Detroit showed a man placing three thick stacks of absentee ballots into a drop box while Hamtramck City Councilman Abu Musa sat in the passenger seat of the car.
Michigan State Police later confirmed they are finalizing an investigation, and prosecutors are expected to announce whether charges will be filed. Musa, who is up for re-election, has refused to comment.
If the ballots did not belong to Musa’s immediate family or members of his household, then Michigan election law was almost certainly violated. State law allows a person to submit absentee ballots only for themselves, their immediate family, or those residing in the same household—not for unrelated voters, and not by the stack.
WATCH: Democrats like NANCY PELOSI and LETITIA JAMES EXPOSED on The Patriot Perspective—uncovering MAJOR insider trading & CORRUPTION scandals
But for anyone familiar with Hamtramck, this isn’t an isolated incident, but rather part of a systemic pattern.
In 2023, Trenae Myesha Rainey, a 28-year-old employee at the Father Murray Nursing Home in Center Line, Michigan, was charged with six felonies for forging absentee ballot applications—three counts of election law forgery and three counts of forging signatures, each carrying up to five years in prison.
Her case stemmed from the 2020 election, when local election clerks flagged approximately two dozen absentee ballot requests with mismatched signatures. A state investigation later found that Rainey had forged applications on behalf of elderly nursing home residents, many of whom were unaware of the forms submitted in their names.
Rainey used her position at the nursing home to access residents’ personal information and submit forged applications without their consent.
Though no fraudulent ballots were cast, her actions undermined the security of Michigan’s absentee ballot system.
Ultimately, Rainey accepted a plea deal and pled guilty to three misdemeanors for making false statements on absentee ballot applications. In April 2023, she was sentenced to 45 days in Macomb County Jail and two years’ probation.
And she is not the only one.
The case raised serious concerns about ballot security in institutional settings. According to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, over 1.3 million absentee ballots were requested from nursing home and long-term care residents during the 2020 election.
Attorney General Dana Nessel often claims that these prosecutions demonstrate that the system works. But her logic assumes that those who get caught are the only ones breaking the law.
What these cases actually show is that the system has exploitable weaknesses—and those weaknesses are being targeted in politically convenient jurisdictions.
Hamtramck’s city council is already under investigation. Two other city council members were arraigned this year on charges related to forged absentee ballot applications.
Both have pleaded not guilty, but their trials are pending. At the same time, the city’s police chief and city manager are on administrative leave for unrelated reasons, leaving Hamtramck’s government in disarray.
Hamtramck is not a sprawling metropolis with layers of oversight. It’s a working-class city of fewer than 30,000 residents, yet it has become a testing ground for election manipulation—from forged absentee requests to drop box stuffing and ballot harvesting schemes conducted through guardianship networks in nursing homes.
Earlier this year, a whistleblower filed a lawsuit alleging misconduct by city officials across multiple departments. Now, it’s possible that several sitting council members could face criminal indictments simultaneously.
None of this should be surprising in a state like Michigan, where absentee voting has surged since 2020 and oversight has declined.
Statewide, absentee ballots accounted for nearly 60% of all votes cast in the 2020 general election—a dramatic increase from 27% in 2016. But election security laws didn’t evolve alongside the new volume.
Michigan still lacks robust voter ID requirements for absentee ballots. There are no residency verification checks, no consistent ballot tracking infrastructure, and minimal consequences for ballot misuse unless a camera or whistleblower catches the fraud directly.
A few hundred forged ballots in a municipal election can swing a council seat or judicial race. When those forged ballots come from nursing home residents, or when they’re dropped off by political allies with no transparency, the integrity of the vote collapses.
Absentee voting is not inherently fraudulent. But when it’s left unsecured, unverified, and unenforced, it becomes the easiest point of entry for manipulation. In Hamtramck, that manipulation has become a political routine.
