Why ballot curing is a potential secret weapon for Michigan campaigns
When Hamtramck voted for its new mayor and council this past November, something stuck out in the final results: an exceptional number of cured ballots.
In a city of less than 28,000 people, with only 4,747 ballots cast, 120 voters worked with the city clerk’s office after the election to fix, or “cure,” issues with their signatures on their absentee ballot envelopes. In the same election, the much larger city of Detroit — which was also electing a new mayor and council — had only 72 voters cure their ballots out of more than 115,000 ballots cast.
But the massive number of cured ballots in Hamtramck wasn’t prompted by anything nefarious. Instead, it was simply an effective effort from enthusiastic mayoral campaigns to ensure every vote counted, relying on the close-knit immigrant networks of the city. Several voters told Votebeat they cured their ballots not after hearing from city officials, but after hearing from an uncle, a brother, or a neighbor that their vote had not yet counted — and that it wouldn’t, unless they fixed their signature.
“I think the campaigns were calling old ladies out of their beds,” Abe Siblani, Hamtramck’s deputy city clerk, joked in December about the incredible number of voters who cured their ballots. Wayne County election data shows that in elections from February 2024 through August 2025, just a single Hamtramck voter had cured their ballot, back in August 2024.
https://www.votebeat.org/michigan/2026/04/01/absentee-mail-ballot-curing-voter-signatures-hamtramck-arizona/