Hamtramck, Michigan, a city of 27,000 just north of Detroit, is now embroiled in not one but two election fraud scandals even as Democrats in the state and elsewhere continue to downplay election integrity concerns.
The first case broke into the news in April when Michigan Democrat Attorney General Dana Nessel opened an investigation into six individuals, including four Hamtramck city council members and a former city council member, for “a conspiracy to unlawfully obtain access to absentee ballots with the intent to illegally vote the ballots” back in 2023. According to CBS News, those individuals “allegedly worked together during the 2023 election to receive blank absentee ballots that had been signed by naturalized citizens” and “would allegedly then fill in the candidates they wanted.”
On August 11, Michigan prosecutors officially charged two of those individuals, city council members Muhtasin Sadman and Mohammed Hassan, both Democrats, with eight counts, including six felonies. The initial Michigan Department of Attorney General petition alleges that Sadman and Hassan “paid for votes, as well as had citizens claim addresses they did not live at, in order to gain an advantage in local elections.” Other Hamtramck officials are still under investigation in that case.
Just days before those charges dropped, new video emerged of another city council member, Abu Musa, sitting in the passenger seat of a car and handing stacks of absentee ballots to a driver who deposited them in a ballot drop box. On August 5, just four days after that surveillance video was shot on August 1, Musa won his primary election with 1,129 votes – 286 cast on Election Day, 843 absentee ballots. The Daily Mail notes he would have finished in fifth place without absentee votes.
Under Michigan law, people “can only submit another person’s absentee ballot if they are close relatives or live in their home,” The New York Post reported.
While Musa was part of the initial Michigan Attorney General investigation over alleged election fraud in 2023, he was not charged in that case. The ballot-stuffing video from this year was instead discovered as part of a separate investigation by Michigan State Police into Musa over allegations that he does not live in Hamtramck.
As Federalist CEO Sean Davis pointed out in response to the story, “That thing that never happens just happened again.”
Other stories since the 2020 election, when election integrity first burst into the political mainstream as a major issue, further illustrate the persistent flaws in American election infrastructure.
In 2023, for instance, a Connecticut judge ordered a new primary election after “videos emerged that captured a city official and former city councilwoman appearing to place numerous ballots into a drop box in a way that violated state election law,” according to The Daily Wire.
Additionally, last year, Phillip Pulley “pleaded guilty to voter registration fraud, voting more than once in a federal election, and two counts of voter fraud,” according to the Heritage Foundation’s Election Fraud database. In 2020, Pulley voted in-person in one county, applied for an absentee ballot in a second county, and voted absentee in a third county.
While these are the instances where election fraudsters were caught, the real concern is how many similar cases escape detection. 2020 was rife with allegations about voter fraud, most of which were never litigated or fully investigated. States changed voting laws on a whim that at the very least created the potential for widespread abuse.
Since 2020, most Republican states have implemented some basic election integrity measures. Georgia, for instance, passed a law that instituted a strong Voter ID requirement, limited ballot drop boxes, and virtually eliminated mobile voting units. However, glaring weaknesses remain in blue states and purple states like Michigan where Democrats have controlled the government in recent years.
Noncitizen voting also remains a major concern. In last year’s presidential election, Chinese national student Haoxiang Gao admitted to voting illegally after registering and voting on the same day at a location set up by University of Michigan professors. While Gao admitted to the charges after realizing what he did, he subsequently fled the country.
Notably, in this case, the only reason anyone knows Gao voted illegally is because he admitted to it, not because of any measures in place to prevent it. This is particularly concerning given that there are currently about 12.8 million green card holders in the United States. There are also thousands of noncitizens who are registered to vote, and evidence suggests at least some have, as previously reported by AMAC Newsline.
The Michigan scandals are a sharp reminder that election integrity remains a serious issue heading into the 2026 midterms and the 2028 presidential election. While the sting of 2020 may have faded, bad actors are still looking for any opportunity to undermine the sanctity of the ballot box. All Americans, regardless of political affiliation, should be on guard against this existential threat to our republic.
Matt Lamb is a contributor for AMAC Newsline and an associate editor for The College Fix. He previously worked for Students for Life of America, Students for Life Action, and Turning Point USA. He previously interned for Open the Books. His writing has also appeared in the Washington Examiner, The Federalist, LifeSiteNews, Human Life Review, Headline USA, and other outlets. The opinions expressed are his own. Follow him @mattlamb22 on X.
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