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.
(Note: the state Democratic party does not normally endorse petition drives. County parties may or may not. So we provide information, not endorsements.)
#1. Citizen voting. Two proposals claim to prevent non-citizen voting. (Which is 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 required 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.
Think about who this really benefits.
#2. 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 -- we'll have three major candidates for the 2026 governor's race!)
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.
In the Michigan state House, the GOP voted for a bill to ban RCV. Democrats voted against the bill.
#3. 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".
#4. Invest In MI Kids would add a 5% income tax on earners with $500,000 (1 million if joint), dedicated entirely to school funding.
#5. Voters to Stop Pay Cuts would undo the Legislature's controversial changes that gutted a 2018 voter-initiated minimum-wage law. The proposal would raise the minimum wage for tipped workers. The history and effects are complex; more info at Michigan Advance.
#6. AxMITax would completely eliminate personal property taxes. This would cut $17 billion annually from the budgets of schools, public safety, libraries, community colleges, etc. More info at Catchmark Community.
