Michigan House passes ballot petition reforms following scandals

House Elections Committee Chair Penelope Tsernoglou (D-East Lansing) testifies on a package of bills aimed at updating and streamlining Michigan's petition process. | Kyle Davidson

In the midst of cranking out an $82.5 billion budget for the next fiscal year, Michigan lawmakers approved reforms Wednesday to how the state handles petitions for ballot initiatives.

The slate of six bills — House Bills 5571 – 5576 — which passed through the House Elections Committee earlier this month —  were recommended by the bipartisan Board of State Canvassers after it convened a workgroup of bipartisan election lawyers and experts to examine the current petition process.

State Rep. Penelope Tsernoglou (D-East Lansing) sponsored one of the bills in the package and said the legislation would secure the petition process in Michigan.

“Active civic engagement in our elections is a sign of a strong and healthy democracy,” she told her House colleagues. “All citizens deserve to make their voice heard. The petition process offers an opportunity for voters to organize and get important issues on the ballot. However, there are some bad actors that misuse this process by falsifying signatures.”

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That issue became apparent in the 2022 election when more than 70,000 fraudulent signatures were submitted across 10 campaigns resulting in five Republican candidates for governor being disqualified from the ballot . It was highlighted again this election cycle when former state Sen. Adam Hollier (D-Detroit) was disqualified  from the August primary ballot for the 13th Congressional District when it was determined he didn’t have enough valid signatures after 690 of those in his petitions were deemed to be fraudulent. Hollier blamed his paid circulator, Londell Thomas, for the fake signatures.

Tsernoglou said the legislation will help prevent that by allowing the bipartisan Board of State Canvassers to codify the use of statistical random sampling to determine the validity of signatures. She said it would also allow canvassers to disqualify obviously fraudulent signatures and refer them to the attorney general for investigation.

“Election integrity is not a partisan issue. Our bipartisan Board of State Canvassers brought these issues to our attention and we addressed them with the bills before us today,” she said.

The Board of State Canvassers is made up of four members appointed by the governor, two Democrats and two Republicans. It oversees canvassing and certification for statewide elections as well as canvassing for candidate nominating petitions filed with the Secretary of State, and state-level ballot proposals. It also assigns ballot designations and adopts language for statewide ballot proposals, among a number of other duties.

Rep. Jay DeBoyer (R-Clay Twp.) spoke out against one bill in the package, House Bill 5571 , which changes the Board of State Canvassers’ current strict compliance standard for petition formatting to a substantial requirement standard in an effort to ensure the will of voters isn’t subverted by technicalities.

DeBoyer saw it differently, saying the legislation actually weakened election laws, which he believed should be precise and definitive, with no ambiguity.

“We do have an issue in our country right now with regard to those things,” he said. “There are a large number of individuals that question validities. They question outcomes. And when we as a legislative body do things like weaken election laws by inserting terms like ‘substantially comply’[when] the previous language of this law said ‘strict compliance,’ we run a tremendous risk.”

DeBoyer then posed some hypothetical scenarios in which substantial compliance was dramatically different than strict compliance.

“What if we were okay with substantial compliance with paying our taxes or what if we were okay with substantial compliance with our marriage vows? Would we say that that’s a good thing? No. We would say that that is absolutely contrary to what election bills should be written as,” he said.

Tsernoglou addressed that point, saying that t he “strict compliance standard has threatened the approval of petitions for non-substantial reasons, such as a missing quotation mark or a font size that is .1 centimeters too large,” she said. “Instead of creating gotcha moments, it is our duty to honor the will of the people and allow petitions that are otherwise valid to be allowed to move forward in the process and ultimately go on to a vote of the people.”

Other changes made by the legislation include no longer requiring canvassers to check signatures against the state’s qualified voter file before disqualifying them nor having to forward a petition to a city township or clerk if it is unable to verify a signature on a petition. However, the board could still require local clerks to help determine the validity of signatures by checking them against registration records including the qualified voter file.

Additionally, the timeline for local boards of canvassers to carry out their duties would be lengthened, which Rep. Ann Bollin (R-Brighton), a former township clerk, supported.

“Today, we have an opportunity to begin to restore confidence in our elections, albeit in a small way,” she said. “By extending these start dates, we are enabling the board of canvassers to conduct a thorough canvas at the county level because they will not be so rushed, providing for checks and balances in our election process. As a former clerk, I understand the importance of checks and balances.”

It also removes requirements for paid signature gatherers to sign a sworn affidavit, and requires the petitioner to state in writing that they are submitting at least the minimum number of required signatures and have made a good-faith effort to sort the petitions based on the number of signatures on each petition sheet.

All six bills moved to the Senate, where they were referred to the Elections and Ethics Committee.

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