Ballot Petitions
There are a lot of ballot petitions circulating right now, good and bad. They're all about getting proposals onto the Michigan November 2026 ballot. Here's a guide to each of the (state-wide) petitions.
We'll start with the bad ones. Please do not sign these!
#1. Citizen voting. Several proposals claim to prevent non-citizen voting. (It's already illegal, and already checked by the SoS.) In Nov 2024, all of sixteen non-citizens attempted to vote in Michigan, out of 5.7 million ballots cast, or .00028 percent.
These proposals greatly increase the documents you need to register to vote. The real effect is to make it harder to vote for (a) married women who changed their name, and (b) poorer people who may have to pay to get registered copies of birth & marriage certificates.
These petitions have names like "Voter ID", "Americans for Citizen Voting", "Protect Voters' Rights", and "Prove It, Michigan". Don't sign them, and warn your friends and neighbors. More info at Decline to Sign.
Think about who this really benefits. The Michigan GOP already tried (and failed) to pass a similar law in March 2025.
#2. AxMITax would completely eliminate personal property taxes. This would cut $17 billion annually from the budgets of schools, public safety, libraries, community colleges, etc., with no plan for making up the difference. More info at Catchmark Community.
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The "good" petitions are not endorsed by all Democrats, but are well worth reading about, and deciding for yourself. Make sure you only sign a particular petition once. Duplicates cause problems.
And if you like a petition, consider volunteering to circulate it! Even if it's only friends & family. It's easy -- see the links below for more info.
#3. Ranked Choice Voting (aka RCV). This proposal means that you can rank-order your vote for each office: 1st choice, 2nd choice, etc. It prevents weird 3-way splits, and guarantees that the winner is acceptable to 50+% of the voters.
(Darth Vader, Leia Organa, and Luke Skywalker run for office. The Dark Side vote gives Vader 40%, but the Light vote splits, 35% for Leia, 25% for Luke. In an old "plurality" election, Vader wins! But in RCV, Luke's fans put Leia as their 2nd choice -- and now Leia wins 60-to-40! Silly example? No -- in 2026, we'll have three major candidates for governor!)
Critics suggest RCV will be confusing. But Maine uses it -- in 2018, 90% of voters reported "excellent" or "good" experience. Alaska uses it. Portland Oregon uses it, as do many other municipalities. Kids can understand it (see video).
In the Michigan state House, the GOP voted for a bill to ban RCV. Democrats voted against the bill.
#4. Money out of Politics (aka MOP) bans political spending by "monopoly" or state-regulated companies -- notably DTE. More info at Bridge magazine and Taking Back Our Power.
Former Democratic House minority leader Yousef Rabhi says "We can't... regulate the utilities because they're the ones regulating us as lawmakers".
#5. Invest In MI Kids would add a 5% income tax on individuals earning $500,000 per year (1 million if joint), dedicated entirely to school funding. (Endorsed Oct 15 by the bi-partisan Michigan State Board of Education.)
#6. Voters to Stop Pay Cuts would undo the Legislature's controversial changes that gutted a 2018 voter-initiated minimum-wage law. (See summary.) The proposal would raise the minimum wage for tipped workers. The history and effects are complex; see analysis at Michigan Advance.
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Candidate Petitions. In addition to the ballot proposal petitions, you may also see petitions to put individual candidates on the ballot. This is a normal part of the election process. Caution: only sign one petition for any specific office (even if you like multiple candidates).
