Detroit’s government has said there was no “nefarious activity” after it deleted surveillance footage of a voting box in the city.
The city had received a Freedom of Information request from a local man who thought he saw something at the unmanned box in August. But the man was later told he could not view the video as it had been deleted.
The Republican National Committee is suing the City of Detroit Department of Elections, alleging that it violated the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by erasing the surveillance video of an “absent voter ballot drop box.”
The RNC lawsuit has echoes of 2020, when the Trump campaign alleged voter fraud in Michigan and other states. Michigan is one of seven swing states in this year’s election.
In a response, Detroit admitted that it should not have deleted the footage, but said its staff were dealing with thousands of information requests each year.
It said it would guarantee that “there was no nefarious activity at the locations where videotapes were requested.”
“Our own failure to respond to the FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] in a timely manner gave the RNC the opportunity to file a frivolous lawsuit,” the city said in a statement. “The filing is designed to cause embarrassment and to undermine faith in our ability to run a problem-free election.
Donald Trump gestures during a Univision Noticias town hall event on October 16, 2024, in Doral, Florida. The Republican National Committee has alleged that Detroit destroyed surveillance footage of a voting box in the city.
Joe Raedle/Getty Images
“The City of Detroit receives almost 9,000 FOIA requests each year. We work to comply with each request and in this case informed the requester we would need more time. By the time we found the video it had been reused and the requested footage was not available. We work every day to improve our processes, and our goal remains to preserve all data according to the policy.”
According to the RNC lawsuit, Kent County resident Jonathan Koch saw something unusual at the drop box on the Northwest Campus of Wayne County Community College at 8200 W. Outer Drive on August 8, but the lawsuit does not say what he allegedly witnessed.
Koch submitted a freedom of information request on August 20, seeking the city’s surveillance footage of the drop box.
On September 16, the city replied to Koch, saying it had automatically deleted the footage after 30 days, even though Koch’s request was just 12 days after the August 8 incident.
The RNC said that Detroit had violated Michigan’s Freedom of Information Act.
“Deleting drop box surveillance footage while there is a pending FOIA request for it is an assault on transparency,” RNC Chairman Michael Whatley said in a statement. “This breach of trust is exactly what reduces confidence in our elections. We will hold Detroit accountable, as this secrecy has no place in a fair and secure election—Michiganders deserve far better.”
The extent to which the Trump campaign tried to allegedly disrupt vote counting in Detroit in 2020 has only recently become known.
On October 2, 2024, prosecutor Jack Smith released a dossier of evidence in Donald Trump‘s election fraud case.
The dossier says that, on November 4, 2020, when vote tallies were not going Trump’s way in Detroit, the campaign staffer texted a Trump operative to get a riot going among his supporters outside the counting center.
“Make them riot” he allegedly texted, and “Do it!!!!”
Newsweek emailed the Trump campaign team for comment on Monday.
Trump was indicted in Washington, D.C., on four counts of allegedly working to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the run-up to the January 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. The Republican presidential candidate has pleaded not guilty and has said the case is part of a political witch hunt.
