The old Arabic saying goes “The letter can be read from its title.” The committee name of “Dearborn Wants Wards” is as misleading and confusing as the campaign it waged in support of Proposal 1 to divide Dearborn into seven Council wards.

The sound defeat of Proposal 1 by 71 percent of Dearborn voters proved one thing: Dearborn does not want wards. Many misleading claims by the proponents of Proposal 1 were glaringly debunked on Tuesday when the results came in.

Here are some.

Claim: “Over 8,000 voters signed the petition to place the proposal on the ballot.” This may be true, but only 7,315 residents voted for it. What happened to the rest?  Did they realize they were misled?

Claim: “People in the south and east ends of Dearborn strongly support this proposal, which is only opposed by the rich and powerful in west Dearborn.” Proposal 1 was soundly defeated in East Dearborn by a majority of voters. Even after nearly $80,000 in expenditures, the wards campaign was only able to muster 75 percent support in the South End itself.

Claim: “Wards are the only way Yemeni American candidates from a certain neighborhood can win city wide elections.” This claim was not promoted in writing to avoid alienating other segments of Dearborn residents. It was, however, repeated over and over on the campaign trail and by poll workers. The reality is when a candidate of a Yemeni origin campaigns hard throughout the city and builds coalition he can win. Take for example Jamal Aljahmi, who won a seat on the Board of Education in 2024 and was the top vote getter by a wide margin; or Adel Mozip, who also was the top vote getter for a Board seat in 2020 by a comfortable margin. Then there is Tuesday’s election where, before the absentee ballots were counted, Shadi Mawari ranked fourth and Othman Alaansi ranked sixth in the Council race — showing they won votes from all over Dearborn on Election Day.

Mawari was ahead of two incumbents and Alaansi was ahead of one incumbent. Both candidates campaigned and built coalitions all over Dearborn. The same was true of Sami Elhady, who was winning the race for City Clerk against longtime incumbent George Darany based on Election Day results, but ended up losing the race once the 7,500 or so absentee votes were counted. It is to be noted that absentee voters are dominated by senior citizens who typically vote for incumbents or names they are familiar with, such as O’Reilly, Dulmage or others who ran before or whose family members held public office.

Claim: “Dearborn Wants Wards was a grass roots movement led by people who cannot afford to raise enough money to run citywide races.” According to the latest filing on October 30, the group supporting Proposal 1 raised $19,620 in direct contributions and received $56,563 as in kind contributions, mostly from an organization named Sabiqun Solution based in Canton. The filing does not list any details as to the nature of the contribution other than “services donated” and the organization’s website does not list the names of the members or leadership of the organization.

Hopefully the sound defeat of Proposal 1 at the ballot box will end the talk of dividing Dearborn into wards once and for all. It shows that no particular community or ethnic group in its entirety is in support of dividing the city. This defeat also shows that the overwhelming majority of the Yemeni American community wants unity in Dearborn and wants to work with the rest of the ethnic groups that make Dearborn such a diverse community. Dearborn is best served when the voters choose candidates based on qualifications and willingness to serve the public and not on their ethnicity, religion or where they live in the city.

Unity is the answer. United we are stronger, divided we become weaker.