Plymouth Twp. elected supervisor accused of intimidation of voters on election day

A west suburban Wayne County supervisor-elect is accused of harassing a poll worker and voters on Election Day, repeatedly demanding a voter count in a precinct he was barred from as an activist and candidate.

According to a police report from the Plymouth Police Department, the incident occurred on the afternoon of Nov. 5 near the station at the Church of St. Kenneth on Haggerty Road and was involved with Chuck Kurmi. Kurmi was recently elected as the new Plymouth Township supervisor after running unopposed. He defeated incumbent Supervisor Kurt Heise in a contested August primary.

The precinct chairman told police that Kurmi approached her while she was outside the precinct — within the 100-foot line set up outside the precincts to indicate where campaigners can legally be — and asked how many people had voted in that precinct, or day, the message says.

The precinct chairman told him that campaigners were not given voter totals and said he needed to step back behind the cones set up to mark the 100-foot line, but Kurmi began repeatedly asking her about the voter count.

Eventually Kurmi said, “Yes, you can give me the number, I am not an activist. I am from the Republican Party,” the chairman wrote in his statement to the police.

Kurmi told police he thought his voter count request was harmless. He did not respond to a request for comment.

Kermi, a longtime Plymouth Township councilman, ran for supervisor and received 98.2 percent of the vote. He was first elected as a trustee in 1992.

An election aspirant, who was outside the precinct during the conversation, said he heard Kurmi ask the precinct officer for the voter number, he told police.

According to the police report, the chairman returned to the station and reported the incident to the clerk’s office. When she saw him pacing the phone and “drifting” inside the 100-foot line, she went outside again to ask him to stay behind the line. Kurmi told her that he had rearranged the cones, so she should measure the distance.

Inside, a “visibly agitated” voter told her that Kurmi approached him and his family and asked them to get their voter ID number and give it to him, according to the police report. He refused to call the police, but the chairman called.

“I felt fear because of his behavior because of these incidents,” she wrote in a statement to police. “I decided to call the police because I felt I was being bullied and I felt voters were being bullied.”

Plymouth Township Police Chief James Knittel said earlier this week his office forwarded the case to the Michigan Attorney General’s Office for review.

A spokesman for the attorney general’s office did not respond to a request for comment on whether charges would be filed.

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