DETROIT — Just two weeks after announcing that he would drop out of the Detroit Mayoral Race, Mike Duggan has officially filed to run for the position once again, but this time as a write-in candidate. 

In late June, Duggan bowed out of the race after two courts had ruled that he did not meet residency requirements to run for mayor. Duggan had registered to vote on April 16, 2012, shortly after moving from Livonia to Detroit, but he filed his papers to run for mayor on April 2, 2013. According to the Detroit City Charter, which was ratified and renewed in 2011, a candidate must be a “resident and a qualified and registered voter of the City of Detroit for one year at the time of filing for office.”

At the time of his announcement to end his run for mayor, Duggan had considered an alternative campaign as a write-in candidate, but said that it could be too difficult to pull off.  However, Duggan’s communications director now says that he has completed and filed the appropriate paperwork to run a write-in campaign.

Tom Barrow, one of Duggan’s opponents for the Detroit Mayoral Race, has once again spoken publicly about challenging Duggan’s campaign. In a letter sent to Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Janice Winfrey, Barrow explains that Wayne County Circuit Judge Lita Popke’s ruling prohibits the City “from taking any actions inconsistent with this order,” referring to her decision to declare Duggan ineligible to run in the primary election.

“Mike Duggan is ineligible to be a candidate and the city clerk is enjoined from moving any candidacy forward,” Barrow spokesman Geoffrey Garfield said earlier this week. “From our interpretation, that includes a write-in campaign in the primary election.”

Winfrey said that she has referred the letter to the City’s law department for review, but declined to further comment. Meanwhile, Duggan’s campaign denounced the move and threatened to seek sanctions against Barrow’s lawyers if the matter was to be pursued. 

However, whether Tom Barrow’s challenge will be held up or not, Duggan says that he is still focused on running his write-in campaign and plans to narrow his focus down to voter education. No instructions exist on the ballot when it comes to write-in candidates, so his campaign will have to strategically inform his supporters how to go about the process on August 6, when the primary will narrow down the long list of candidates to the top two vote-getters. 

His campaign estimates that they’ll need 15,000 to 20,000 signatures, in order to get his name on the November ballot.