“The world turned upside down. We had a turbulent America at the time, but we didn’t expect such tricks to happen at that time,” he told reporters. “We expect and hope for the best, and we have planned for the worst.”

Winfrey, the city clerk, said she once thought her personal police escort was “overkill.”

“But when they came to my house, they came to my house in 2020 and threatened my life because they thought I had something to do with Trump losing. That’s when things changed for me,” she said.

Asked at a news conference about the focus on voter fraud in Democratic cities like Detroit, Baxter said race is a factor.

“It’s because we’re a black city,” Baxter said. “I think if you look at some of the attacks that have been made on communities like Philadelphia, Detroit, Atlanta, those kinds of communities, that’s where black people live, that’s where black people are administrators of the process, and that’s the reason why we are attacked so often.”

Under a measure passed during the 2022 midterm elections, local clerks in Michigan can choose to pre-process absentee ballots before Election Day, which officials hope will lead to faster results and fewer conspiracy theories on election night .