‘I Can’t Tell You Who to Vote For,’ a Second Dearborn Poll Worker Said. Then He Did.

He knew the rule. He said it out loud. “You don’t know who to vote for?” the Dearborn, Michigan, poll worker asked, speaking in Arabic. “With the work I’m doing, I can’t tell you who to vote for.”

Then, in the very next breath: “But you know there’s someone you must vote for.”

The voter he was talking to was an undercover reporter for O’Keefe Media Group. “There’s this Egyptian guy,” the reporter said. “That’s the one you want,” the worker answered, according to the group’s translation, “and then fill in the rest.” He added a helpful tip: “His name is there. You’ll see his name, yeah. And the ballot is in Arabic.”

The “Egyptian guy” on Tuesday’s Michigan ballot was Democrat Abdul El-Sayed, the son of Egyptian immigrants, who won the state’s open U.S. Senate seat early Wednesday. O’Keefe posted the video Wednesday afternoon, calling it a case of a poll worker “directing” his reporter toward the senator-elect. It passed half a million views overnight.

Michigan law says exactly what he said

The worker’s first sentence was correct. Michigan’s election code, MCL 168.744, says an “election inspector or any other person in a polling room” or within 100 feet of the entrance “shall not persuade or endeavor to persuade a person to vote for or against any particular candidate.” Breaking it is a misdemeanor.

Note the words “endeavor to.” The law doesn’t care whether the voter was already leaning that way, or whether the nudge worked. Trying is the offense. And the person trying here wasn’t a campaign volunteer in a parking lot. He was the official on the other side of the table, the one voters are supposed to trust to stay neutral.

In O’Keefe’s narration, the worker “spoke in Arabic for the entire conversation, likely assuming that his coworkers won’t be able to understand what he’s saying.” That’s O’Keefe’s read, not something the video proves. What the video does show is a man reciting the rule and breaking it inside of ten seconds.

Two videos, two workers, one city

This is the second Dearborn poll worker O’Keefe’s team caught on Election Day. The first, posted minutes after Michigan’s polls closed Tuesday, showed a female worker telling a reporter who said “I’m not a U.S. citizen” that “only for U.S. President you can’t vote, but the others you can.” Federal law, 18 U.S.C. § 611, bans noncitizens from voting for Senate and House too. That video has passed 2 million views.

Put them side by side and the problem gets bigger than one bad apple. One worker told a self-described noncitizen he could vote in the Senate race. Another told a voter which Senate candidate he “must” pick. Same city, same day, same race, both in Arabic.

The question nobody in charge has answered

Dearborn has offered Arabic-language ballots since 2022, when the City Council required them and Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s office announced they were available “for the first time in state history.” In that same announcement, City Clerk George Darany said Arabic-speaking poll workers had been “working to assist voters for the past twenty years.”

Helping a voter read a ballot in his own language is legal. Telling him who to mark on it is not. And when the conversation happens in a language most poll watchers and fellow workers can’t follow, who is checking which one is happening?

As of early Thursday, we could find no public statement from Benson, Darany or Mayor Abdullah Hammoud about either video. Nobody has named either worker or said whether either one will work another election. Neither video shows a ballot being cast, and neither names the worker.

DOJ wants the tape, O’Keefe says

O’Keefe says federal investigators are already interested. “We understand the Department of Justice is looking into this,” he says in the video, “and they have requested raw footage of this tape.” The Justice Department had not confirmed that publicly as of early Thursday.

If DOJ is looking, the noncitizen video is the federal piece: Section 611 is a federal crime, and the Justice Department had election monitors in Michigan this cycle. The electioneering video is mostly a state matter, which puts it in the hands of Wayne County’s prosecutor and Benson’s office, the same people who have said nothing so far.

El-Sayed’s win doesn’t hang on two poll workers, and nobody serious says it does. That’s not the point. The point is that two officials paid to run a clean election were caught doing the opposite on camera, and the people who run Dearborn’s elections still haven’t said a word.

“We understand the election is over,” O’Keefe said, “but our mission remains.” Michigan’s counties are canvassing the vote now. The state Board of Canvassers certifies later this month.