Experts put the ballot count protests at TCF Center in Detroit into perspective

‘Stop the count,’ protesters chanted

DETROIT – Vote counters were counting ballots at the TCF Center in Detroit on Wednesday and when Donald Trump began falling behind in Michigan, his supporters showed up to the TCF Center and chanted “stop the count.”

READ: Michigan judge denies Trump campaign request to stop counting ballots

On Wednesday, the Associated Press projected that Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden won the state of Michigan in the General Election.

In Arizona, as Joe Biden’s lead began to dwindle, Trump supporters showed up and chanted, “continue the count.”

Local 4 spoke to Oakland University professors Dave Dulio, the director of Civic Engagement and professor of political science and professor Erin Dwyer from the Department of History.

Dulio said he believes the chanters misspoke and meant to address the president’s unfounded assertion that there were not enough Republican observers watching the count.

Dwyer said she sees something else. “You’re not seeing internal consistency,” she said. “You’re seeing a different problem.”

She spoke to some of her friends who were in the building at the time and said this was not about continuing democracy, but interrupting it.

“A poll watcher who was inside the building,” she said. “Yelling racial epithets at people in that building.”

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About the Authors:

Paula Tutman is an Emmy award-winning journalist who came to Local 4 in 1992. She's married and the stepmother of three beautiful and brilliant daughters. Her personal philosophy in life, love and community is, "Do as much as you can possibly do, not as little as you can possibly get away with".

Kayla is a Web Producer for ClickOnDetroit. Before she joined the team in 2018 she worked at WILX in Lansing as a digital producer.