The Detroit City Clerk’s Office violated a law intended to protect election transparency by processing and tabulating absentee ballots early without alerting the public or taking other required steps, a Highland Park activist alleges in a lawsuit to be filed in federal court Monday.

Robert Davis, a citizen watchdog of election practices, says the city began processing and tabulating absentee ballots on Thursday without taking the legal steps required to do so. The process continued Friday, he says.

Despite what he says is a blatant violation of state law, neither the state Attorney General’s Office nor the Secretary of State’s Office has done anything to address it, leaving him no choice but to file an emergency lawsuit Monday, he tells Metro Times .

In an email Thursday, Davis urged

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