SMART bus (Photo from SMART)
SMART photo
With a whisker-thin win for regional transit in Macomb County in this month's election, Republicans there are seeking a recount, The Detroit News reports.
“Thirty-nine votes out of 155,000 is statistically a tied election,” said Leon Drolet, a Macomb County commissioner and chair of the Michigan Taxpayers Alliance, in a statement Tuesday. “Over $110 million taxpayer dollars that will be taken from citizens and given to SMART are at stake, as is the principle of election integrity. Voters have a right to expect extreme scrutiny when an election is this close.”
The margin was only 23 votes on election night, and grew slightly before Macomb County's Board of Canvassers certified the result The official count was 77,500 to 77,461, with the millage passing. Here's what's at stake:
Voters in Macomb as well as communities in Oakland and Wayne counties decided Aug. 7 to renew the millage to fund SMART through 2021. The measure also slightly increases the millage in Macomb and Oakland counties to 1 mill, which Wayne County residents already pay.
According to the millage proposal, a resident with a home valued at $200,000 will pay $100 per year under the tax. In Macomb County, where residents had paid 0.9926 mills, that means an annual increase of 78 cents.
The Michigan Taxpayers Alliance paid a $9,950 fee for the recount.