Trump makes false Detroit turnout claim during call with Georgia officials

President Donald Trump repeated dubious claims about Michigan's election as he pressured officials in Georgia to overturn their state's result over the weekend.

In a phone call that featured Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, Trump falsely asserted that turnout in Detroit was 139%, according to an audio recording of the hour-long call released by the Washington Post on Sunday. The actual turnout in Detroit was 51%, according to the official results tallied by the City Clerk's Office.

A data "analysis" previously released by Texas resident Russell Ramsland — Ramsland has been cited in litigation brought by supporters of the president — incorrectly said there was 139% turnout in a precinct in Detroit, but it's unclear how he arrived at that figure and which precinct he was focused on. Ramsland's analysis also falsely said there were multiple precincts in Muskegon County with more than 100% turnout, including one with 781% turnout.

►RELATED REPORT: Trump, on tape, presses official to find votes, overturn Biden's win in Georgia

► LISTEN:  Hear select clips of the phone call between Trump and Raffensperger

There is no chance a county board of canvassers would allow a precinct to be certified with 781% turnout, Jeanne Pezet, elections coordinator for Muskegon County, told The Detroit News last month.

The highest precinct-level turnout percentage in Wayne County's official results was 88% in Precinct 4 of Brownstown Township.

Trump, who's been pushing to discredit the election results in Michigan and other battleground states, made the comment about Detroit's turnout, after telling election officials in Georgia that there's "turmoil" in other places.

"You're not the only one," Trump said in the Saturday call. "I mean we have other states that I believe will be flipping to us very shortly."

He went on to talk about Detroit, Michigan's largest city and a Democratic stronghold. The Republican incumbent lost Michigan by 154,000 votes to President-elect Joe Biden, a Democrat, on Nov. 3, two months ago.

The Board of State Canvassers certified the result, and on Dec. 14, the state's 16 presidential electors officially cast their votes for Biden.

"In Detroit, we had, I think it was, 139% of the people voted," Trump told election officials in Georgia. "That's not too good."

According to Detroit's official results, 257,619 voters participated in the election out of 506,305 registered voters.

Minutes later, during the call, Trump made an unsubstantiated claim that "a tremendous number" of dead people voted in Michigan. The president didn't cite a source for the comment but said he thought the number was about 18,000.

"That was checked out laboriously by going through the obituary columns in the newspapers," he said.

A "fact check" maintained by the Michigan Secretary of State's Office says it's "not aware of a single confirmed case showing that a ballot was actually cast on behalf of a deceased individual."

"Ballots of voters who have died are rejected in Michigan, even if the voter cast an absentee ballot and then died before Election Day," the "fact check" says. "Those who make claims otherwise are wrong, and the lists circulating claiming to show this is happening are not accurate."

Lists of "dead voters" compiled and shared on social media do not contain enough information to "accurately compare" names to the state's qualified voter file, the "fact check" adds.

Michigan clerks did catch 3,469 instances in which a voter legally cast a ballot while alive but then died before Election Day.

On Dec. 7, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat, said her office hadn't found credible information about even isolated voter fraud that was successfully carried out in the Nov. 3 election.

cmauger@detroitnews.com