The Hamtramck city clerk who said there was cheating in the 2023 City Council election has been fired. Earlier, unopened ballots from last year’s close mayoral race were found in her office, city officials confirmed.
Former City Clerk Rana Faraj had been on paid leave since November 10, according to a lawsuit she filed against the city in early December. Mayor Adam Alharbi said Faraj’s job had been “on hold for legal reasons because of her lawsuit.” He said insurance lawyers recently told city officials they could go ahead with firing her.
The firing came about four months after Faraj was put on leave when uncounted ballots that could have changed the 2025 mayoral election were found in her office. Neither Faraj nor city officials have explained how these uncounted ballots ended up in the Clerk’s Office.
She was fired “due to misconduct, bad behavior, election interference, and lack of understanding,” said council member Nayeem Choudhury. Choudhury was elected in November and was one of six people investigated by Attorney General Dana Nessel’s office over election cheating claims. A special prosecutor did not charge him.
“She was not a good person as she should be as human being,” Choudhury said in an email. “Job is not authoritarian, should be respected, due diligence and integrity.”
Neither Choudhury nor Alharbi gave specific details about what led to Faraj’s firing. Former City Manager Max Garbarino was also fired last year by the City Council during the election cheating investigation. He has a whistleblower lawsuit pending in Wayne County Circuit Court.
A phone number listed for Faraj appears to be disconnected. She did not reply to messages on social media seeking comment.
“This is another predictable example of Hamtramck retaliating with a city council and administration that has gone completely amok,” Faraj’s attorney, Jon Marko, said in a Monday email. “We are moving forward with our lawsuit to seek justice for Rana and the people of Hamtramck.”
Faraj was put on leave soon after an election mistake that may have cost former City Council member Muhith Mahmood the mayor’s job.
Alharbi won the election by 11 votes according to November 4 election night results, and also won a December 2 hand recount.
However, two days after the election, a Clerk’s Office worker found 37 uncounted ballots in Faraj’s office. Faraj told Wayne County officials about the problem. After a two-day meeting, the Wayne County Board of Canvassers could not agree on whether to count the misplaced ballots, which meant they were not counted.
Between November 5 and 6, five people who were not election workers entered the Clerk’s Office before the ballots were found. This broke the chain of custody, Faraj’s lawsuit said.
Mahmood is suing Alharbi, the city of Hamtramck, and the Wayne County Board of Canvassers to try to get the ballots counted. He says that 37 Hamtramck voters have lost their right to vote and that state law says votes cannot be thrown out because of a mistake by an election official.
Mahmood’s attorney, Mark Brewer, said they are waiting for a decision by the Michigan Court of Appeals on the case.
In her lawsuit, Faraj claimed she was put on leave as payback after she filed a formal written complaint with Nessel’s office in March 2025. She reported ballot harvesting, intimidation of election workers, and unlawful interference with election work, her attorney said in December.
In her letter to Nessel, Faraj said she had given the Attorney General’s Office “numerous reports and evidence” of absentee ballot cheating during the 2023 Hamtramck City Council election.
The next month, Nessel’s office asked for a special prosecutor to look into claims that council members Muhtasin Sadman and Mohammed Hassan worked with others to get unvoted absentee ballots that had been signed by newly naturalized citizens. They then filled in the ballots with the candidates they wanted, according to the claims.
Sadman pleaded guilty in February to a lesser charge of disorderly person loitering about an illegal business, according to Hamtramck District Court records. He was originally charged with making a false statement on an absentee ballot application.
Hassan is charged with forging a signature on an absentee ballot application, election law forgery, and making a false statement on an absentee ballot application. He has a pretrial hearing scheduled for Friday and a trial set to begin in April.
The city is now posting the city clerk job opening and looking for candidates, Alharbi said. Administrative officer Omar Thabet, who had been doing the clerk’s duties while Faraj was away, is being hired as the city’s media director.
