Advocates of an initiative to tighten Michigan voting laws and require voter identification on Friday submitted petition signatures, a move those in opposition say was intended to “veto proof” their efforts after the submission was previously delayed.
The petition failed to meet the May 31 deadline to turn in signatures for the November general election ballot. The delay by organizers is due to what Secure MI Vote Spokesperson Jamie Roe called “an abundance of caution,” after the group found about 20,000 fraudulent signatures.
Organizers did so despite the 435,000 signatures secured before the deadline — far more than the 340,047 statutorily required — without including the fraudulent signatures.
Those in opposition to Secure MI Vote believe that delaying the signature submission was a calculated. Instead, the group will bring the initiative in front of the Republican-led legislature, where it has a better chance of being voted into law.
Since this route was taken, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer does not have the ability to veto the proposals if adopted.
Nancy Wang is executive director of Voters Not Politicians, Michigan’s leading voting rights organization. She said in a written statement that Secure MI Vote has “misled voters in its effort to make it harder to vote in Michigan.”
“Everything about the Secure MI Vote campaign is the opposite: From day 1, the campaign has made clear that this is a package of voter suppression bills disguised as a citizen initiative,” Wang said. “They are turning in signatures not to qualify for the 2022 ballot – because they have missed the deadline to do that – but to put these measures to the state legislature to pass veto-proof legislation that will undermine our democracy.”
This story was originally published by MLive. Read more here: https://www.mlive.com/public-interest/2022/07/michigan-voter-id-initiative-submits-signatures-late-could-pass-via-legislature.html
