Opinion | Michiganders should decline to sign anti-voter ballot petition

Recent changes in the state of Michigan offer some positive lessons about how to ensure elections are responsive to the voters. For example, in 2018 and 2022, Michiganders across the political spectrum united to vote overwhelmingly in favor of amending our state Constitution to make our elections more secure and more accessible.

Michigan recently earned an A+ grade from the Institute for Responsive Government’s democracy progress report for the second consecutive year. Voters across Michigan have embraced the recent pro-voter changes to our election laws and value the convenience of flexible registration and voting options. Election officials have answered the call of duty to implement the new voting laws with grace, grit, and shared expertise. 

That’s why I am concerned about new proposals that would inject chaos and confusion into our elections, roll back progress, and create obstacles that could prevent eligible voters from participating in our democracy. Michiganders deserve to know the truth about these ballot proposals and how they can prevent them from progressing. These two proposals place additional burdens on our local city, township and village clerks and could result in eligible voters unknowingly being removed from the voting rolls.

The Michigan Board of State Canvassers recently approved petition forms for two “documentary proof of citizenship” ballot proposals — Prove It Michigan and Americans for Citizen Voting — that will add extremely burdensome red tape to the voter registration process by requiring an eligible voter to produce a birth certificate or passport to register to vote. 

Alarmingly, a study by the Brennan Center for Justice found that at least 21 million Americans do not have easy access to these documents. Only 39.7% of Michigan citizens have a valid passport, well below the national average of 53.1%. Almost 6 million Michigan citizens do not have a valid passport that could easily prove their citizenship, and 2.2 million Michigan women don’t have a birth certificate that matches their legal married name.

These proposals will do nothing to actually make elections more secure, and instead, they will prevent eligible voters from participating in our elections. In fact, the proposals are similar to failed efforts in Arizona and Kansas, both of which created barriers to the ballot so burdensome that they were each struck down by their state courts. While other states have tried and failed to implement these measures, groups supporting these proposals are still moving forward with collecting the more than 446,000 signatures required in order to place the proposals on the ballot in 2026.

Both proposals show contempt for the will of the voters by weakening the popular pro-voter initiatives that passed in 2018 and 2022. Rather than upholding policies that ensure that our elections are fair, accurate, secure, and accessible while maintaining transparent and efficient election administration, these anti-voter proposals place unfair burdens on voters who lack access to documents, making it more difficult for some voters to register and injecting confusion into how election officials maintain our voter registration rolls. 

Simply put, these proposals are redundant non-solutions in search of a problem. 

The bottom line is that these proposals would create problems and invite confusion for voters and election officials. They demonstrate a poor understanding of Michigan election law and ought to be rejected by everybody who values the progress we have made in improving Michigan’s elections.

If voters are out in public and see anyone collecting signatures for these petitions, I sincerely hope they decline to sign. Michiganders should consider working with local nonpartisan grassroots organizations such as the Voters Not Politicians Ballot Committee to raise awareness about the potential damage these proposals will cause. We know Michiganders reject efforts to restrict access to voting, and we have the power to stop this assault on elections. 

Let’s keep moving forward, celebrate our progress, and reject these proposals.