In a dramatic development, the results of Hamtramck’s 2025 mayoral election have been turned upside down after 37 absentee ballots were counted following a protracted court battle between former City Councilman Muhith Mahmood and incumbent Mayor Adam Alharbi, pursuant to a new Wayne County Circuit Court ruling.

The counting of the absentee ballots on October 16 brought Mahmood’s total to 2,089 votes, giving him a 12-vote lead over Alharbi, who received 2,077 votes. Alharbi had initially led his Bangladeshi American opponent by 11 votes in the November mayoral election.

The new results will not be adopted until they are formally certified by Wayne County Circuit Court and a lawsuit filed by Alharbi against Mahmood is resolved. Alharbi is seeking a restraining order preventing Mahmood from taking the oath of office should the results turn against him, alleging that Mahmood violated eligibility requirements stipulating that candidates for public office in Hamtramck must have lived in the city for at least one year.

The Wayne County Circuit Court held a hearing Thursday on that lawsuit but had not issued a ruling. The court is expected to resolve the question of Mahmood’s residency Friday, as this issue goes to press, or early next week.

Meanwhile, Hamtramck’s mayoralty stands at a crossroads. If the court determines that Mahmood violated the city charter’s eligibility requirements, he would be legally ineligible to become mayor. Alharbi would also lose the office because he lost the race under the latest vote totals. Mayor Pro Tem Abu Musa would then assume the mayor’s duties until the next city election next year.

If, however, the court rejects the lawsuit filed by Alharbi, who is of Yemeni descent, and finds that Mahmood actually resides in Hamtramck, the former Councilman would replace Alharbi as mayor.

That would not definitively end the legal battle. Alharbi told The Arab American News that he intends to challenge the results of the October 16 count once they are formally certified in the coming days.

This means Alharbi’s ability to retain the office depends primarily on winning his anticipated appeal, which would overturn the new vote count. If he loses that challenge but wins the residency lawsuit, both Alharbi and Mahmood would lose their claim to Hamtramck’s mayoralty.

As Hamtramck awaits the conclusion of the legal challenges and election procedures related to the 2025 mayoral election, city officials said Alharbi will remain in office.

“Under standard legal procedures, Adam Alharbi remains mayor of Hamtramck, and the current administration continues to conduct official city business until the courts issue a final decision and the election results are officially certified,” the city said in an official Facebook post.

Background

After the initial results of last year’s Hamtramck mayoral race gave Alharbi an 11-vote victory, 37 absentee ballots were discovered in open envelopes in the office of former City Clerk Rana Faraj, two days after the votes were counted.

The dispute moved into the courts after the Wayne County Board of Canvassers, which consists of two Republicans and two Democrats, deadlocked.

The case subsequently reached the Michigan Supreme Court, whose justices declined in January to hear arguments, instead insisting on an expedited decision from the Michigan Court of Appeals. The appeals court issued a ruling in March directing reconsideration of the 37 absentee ballots.

The case then returned to Wayne County Circuit Court, which initially ruled that the ballots were ineligible to be counted because their chain of custody had been broken. Early this month, however, Wayne County Circuit Judge Kathleen McCarthy ordered that the absentee ballots be counted no later than October 16, which subsequently occurred.

On the Friday before last, Wayne County Director of Elections Greg Mahar retrieved the previously uncounted absentee ballots, and the Board of Canvassers counted them, ultimately giving Mahmood a 12-vote lead.

Mahmood and his supporters celebrated the new results. If certified and officially adopted, those results would position him to become the first Bangladeshi American mayor of a city with Michigan’s highest proportion of immigrants. Bangladeshis and Yemenis constitute its two largest ethnic communities, according to census data.

For his part, Alharbi maintained that the case is not settled, pinning his hopes on the residency lawsuit against Mahmood and his anticipated challenge to the new results.

“I have no problem losing the election and, consequently, losing the office, but I will continue fighting out of concern for election integrity and the enforcement of Michigan law,” he told The Arab American News.

He added that the open envelopes confirm that the absentee ballots were tampered with and asserted that investigations conducted by the city of Hamtramck had established beyond doubt that Mahmood violated the eligibility requirements and actually lives in Troy.