DEARBORN — It came down to the last votes, literally. By 10:00 p.m. on Election Day, with 98 percent of the votes counted, both Susan Dabaja and Thomas Tafelski were tied at 9,299 votes. But the voting results from the last reporting precinct gave Dabaja an additional 32 votes to put her on top, making her the first Arab American woman, in the City’s history, to become Dearborn City Council President. 

The race proved that the popular election slogan, “every vote counts,” is in fact true.

Fourteen candidates competed for seven city council seats, forging alliances and aggressively campaigning for a seat on the City’s governing body.

However, the day witnessed more enthusiasm from volunteer campaigners and poll workers than from actual voters, who turned out in relatively low numbers. Only 30.21 percent of all registered voters in Dearborn voted on Nov. 5.

Campaign volunteers cheered at passersby, but throughout the City, at any given point of the day, there were mostly more campaigners outside of the precincts than voters inside of them.

Campaigners handed out flyers, pens, magnates, water bottles, and even nail files with candidates’ names, to voters. 

Although Mayor Jack O’Reilly Jr.’s reelection was not under serious threat from opponent Edward Binkley, the mayor traveled from precinct to precinct in the morning, promoting the list of candidates he endorsed for city council and distributing donuts and coffee to campaign volunteers.

The mayor commuted in a van and wore an apron that had his name, along with the names of the six candidates he had endorsed for city council. 

O’Reilly endorsed all incumbents, except current council president Tafelski. In addition to incumbents Robert Abraham, David Bazzy, Brian O’Donnell and Mark Shooshanian, the mayor’s list also included newcomers Dabaja and Mark Sareini.

At the end of the day, O’Reilly emerged as the biggest winner. He retained the mayor’s seat by a massive margin, all the candidates that he endorsed won, and Tafelski came in second place, losing the council presidency to Dabaja.

Young Arab American attorney Tarek Baydoun lost his bid for city council. 

However, Abraham, Bazzy, Dabaja and Sareini are of Arab descent; four out of seven seats on the council will be held by Arab Americans.

On the morning of Nov. 5, the mayor told The Arab American News that he hopes voter turnout would exceed 30 percent, adding that high turnouts “lead to the most democratic results.”

In addition to the city council seats, the Dearborn Public Schools’ S.M.A.R.T bond and the two millages for Henry Ford Community College were up for vote. 

HFCC staff and supporters were present at the precincts, asking voters to approve the proposals concerning the college. Their efforts paid off, as the bond and both millages passed by a comfortable margin.

At Miller Elementary in east Dearborn, the full parking lot around noon was for a teachers’ workshop. The two precincts at the school’s gym had only one resident casting his vote.

Ghazi, a Yemeni American resident, told TAAN, after casting his vote at Miller, that he feels empowered by participating in the elections.

“If we don’t vote, we’re giving up our rights,” he said. 

At Salina School’s two precincts in the south end, over 420 ballots had been cast by the close of the evening. While that turnout would place the area at the lower-end of Dearborn’s 56 precincts, Yemen American Benevolent Association (YABA) Executive Director Ali Baleed Almaklani, who passed out Arab American Political Action Committee (AAPAC) slates all day long, says he was quite pleased with the turnout there.

Early on, some confusion had risen in the area, as another Yemeni-American group,  the Yemeni American Political Action Committee (YAPAC) had distributed a slate, endorsing eight candidates for the seven city council seats. It appeared that some voters had been misled into believing that they could select eight candidates for the positions.

Almaklani says he immediately took action, once the issue was brought to his attention.

“I decided to pass out the slate for AAPAC, instead of YAPAC. We’ve been telling people that if you vote for eight candidates, your ballot will get disqualified and that would hurt us all. I hope they spread the word to the other precincts, so they can take care of this issue as soon as possible,” Almaklani says.

By mid-afternoon, YAPAC had retracted their endorsement list, but the blunder was still harmful enough to have disqualified 75 ballots.

The confusion seemed to have ended there, however. One noticeable difference at the Salina precincts this election year was the addition of several bilingual Arab American poll workers, who had been hired and trained by the Dearborn City Clerk’s office. Dearborn residents Sakiya Albanna, Summer Alrayyashi and Noof Almawri told TAAN that they took on the job to assist local residents at the polls.

“We came here to help the community and assist bilingual residents. It’s important for us to be helping out our neighbors and friends who might not have the resources or education to properly fill out a ballot. It helps when they see us here behind the desks,” said Almawri. 

But little progress was made at the south end precincts and campaigners also expressed disappointment in the voter turnout at the east end of town.

Over at the McDonald Elementary School precincts, 550 ballots had been cast by closing time. While those numbers had come ahead of the majority of the precincts on the east end, they paled in comparison to previous elections, when the two precincts had set a precedent in voter turnout.

Jackie Zaidan, who stations herself outside of McDonald Elementary School every Election Day, from open to close, blamed the mudslinging that had occurred between candidates in recent weeks.

“I have talked to people, friends from the west end and east end, and a lot of them are turned off by too much campaigning and the negative attacks on each other,” Zaidan says. “People are surprised at the amount of money that has been raised and the amount of friction that’s going on, just for a city council seat.”

Zaidan, who was handing out AAPAC slates to local residents, said she was also disappointed to see a poster being handed out to voters, which only supported the three first-time Arab American candidates:  Dabaja, Sareini and Baydoun. That slate had been distributed by local high school and college students from the Arab Student Union of the University of Michigan-Dearborn (UMD) and Fordson High School.

The campaign poster, displaying the candidates’ faces, along with a slogan that read “our time is now,” received mixed reactions from volunteers at the polls. Some felt it was important to highlight the three candidates, so as to encourage a higher voter turnout in the east end, while others pointed out that voters shouldn’t just support the Arab American candidates, as there were seven seats open, and other qualified non-Arab American candidates were in the running.

ASU E-board members tell TAAN that the organization only made the decision to endorse the three candidates, after they had held a candidate forum in late October.  They explain that they based the endorsement off of their performance at the event.

But AAPAC President Mariam Bazzi tells TAAN that the decision for the organization to endorse seven candidates for city council was the best bet for Dearborn residents.

“AAPAC has been around for 16 years, and I think we’ve proven our work. We are an organization that works in the best interest for the entire community. It’s a huge danger when organizations start working for the cause of individuals, and I think voting for seven candidates was the right thing to do for the Arab American community and the right thing to do for the Arab American candidates on our slate,” Bazzi says.

Dozens of AAPAC volunteers were stationed across several precincts in the City, distributing their slate to voters, as they came to the polls. Thousands of mailers had also been distributed, two weeks prior, to registered Arab American voters across Dearborn, Dearborn Heights, Detroit and Hamtramck.

Mustapha Hammoud, an AAPAC volunteer at the Woodworth Middle School precincts, said voters were being “mobbed” by campaigners for Arab American candidates, as soon as they approached the school.

“You have a lot of manpower that is not being utilized towards a common goal,” he said. 

Hammoud added that some voters were actually asking for AAPAC’s slate. 

“This shows that more and more people are getting to know what AAPAC is,” he explained.

Regardless, by the end of the evening, it was clear that the Arab American voter turnout was underwhelming. As polls closed at Maples Elementary School, with around 430 ballots cast, several campaigners conveyed their dismay to TAAN, regarding the lack of interest from the Arab American community.

“The turnout is lower than we hoped for and expected,” said Bazzi.

Louie Moussa, a Susan Dabaja campaigner, who had been outside those two precincts for several hours in the evening, said that Arab Americans have a lack of interest and lack of faith in the election process in the U.S.

“The turnout was not enough. Arab Americans simply just don’t want to go out and vote. They don’t believe in it. It’s the truth. Forty percent of Dearborn’s population is Arab American, but it sure doesn’t show at the polls. They have a lack of interest and a lack of faith in this system, and every year it’s the same story,” Moussa said.

In west Dearborn, the voter turnout was higher than the east side of the City. 

By 6:30 p.m., about 400 ballots were cast at Woodworth Middle School, versus more than 600 votes at First Presbyterian Church and Dearborn High in West Dearborn. All three schools have two precincts each.

 “This is a thrilling election. We have many Arab candidates. I voted for them because they’re qualified, not only because they’re Arab,” said Dr. Nabil Berry after casting his vote at First Presbyterian Church.

Bottom line, the elections brought two new faces to the city government, both are Arab American. But more importantly, it placed an Arab American woman at the helm of the City’s government body, for the first time in history.