An impasse over a Michigan proposal for a new voter proof-of-citizenship requirement sets the stage for a legal battle over whether to send the measure to the Nov. 3 ballot.
At a marathon ‒ and at times heated – meeting, the Board of State Canvassers deadlocked along partisan lines Monday, Aug. 24 over certifying that Americans for Citizen Voting, which sponsored the proposed amendment to the state's constitution, submitted enough valid voter signatures. The board's Republican members voted to send the measure to the ballot while the Democrats voted against certification.
Americans for Citizen Voting, in a statement posted on Facebook after the board's vote, vowed legal action. "We are disappointed by today's outcome brazenly disenfranchising
voters, but we are not done fighting. We will defend these petition signers' right to be heard," the statement reads.
Republicans have raised alarm over a small number of instances of non-citizen voting, prompting proposals like the one in Michigan. Opponents argue it would erect new barriers to legally eligible voters' participation in elections.
The nail-biting dispute over whether Americans for Citizen Voting submitted enough signatures featured discussions of crayon markings on petition sheets, last-minute affidavits from voters seeking to rehabilitate signatures previously rejected by the state's Bureau of Elections and head-spinning legal questions about the impact of the board's split over signatures previously accepted by the bureau in its review.
Only United States citizens can vote in federal and state elections (some municipalities allow non-citizens to vote in some local elections, but in Michigan, citizenship is a requirement for participating in local races too).
The citizenship voting measure proposes tasking the Secretary of State's office with administering a citizenship verification program and purging from the state's voter roll suspected non-citizens, giving them a 45-day window to contest their removal. It would also allow voters to prove their citizenship status with documents such as a passport or birth certificate.
Those registered who have not had their citizenship verified would have to cast a provisional ballot that would not be counted unless they provided documentary proof of citizenship within six days of the election.
Currently, those registering to vote in Michigan must attest under penalty of perjury that they are United States citizens. Michigan's Secretary of State office has referred cases of suspected non-citizen voting to the attorney general's office, which has brought criminal charges against several individuals.
Americans for Citizens Voting, on its website, states that an instance of a non-citizen voting "cancels out the vote of a lawful U.S. citizen, diminishing the voice of those who are legally eligible to participate." Research has consistently shown that non-citizen registration and voting is rare.
The proposal would also eliminate the option in Michigan for the relatively small group of voters without a photo ID to sign an affidavit confirming their identity. And it proposes a new voter requirement for absentee voters to provide an original copy of a photo ID, driver's license or state ID number or the last four digits of their Social Security number.
To put a constitutional amendment on the Nov. 3 ballot, Americans for Citizen Voting needed to submit at least 446,198 signatures from Michigan voters. Their filing included a more than 260,000-signature cushion, according to the Bureau of Elections.
But the bureau's review of a sample of 1,000 of the signatures submitted identified a range of problems, including duplicate signature submissions, mismatches between the voter signature submitted and the one in the state's voter file and signatures from individuals not registered to vote in the municipality they listed on the petition. The bureau found that the proposal did not achieve the threshold for valid voter signatures needed for certification.
The board's disagreement over the signature review came down, in part, to a partisan split over accepting late-arriving affidavits from voters attesting that the signatures rejected by elections staff were valid.
Contact Clara Hendrickson at chendrickson@freepress.com or 313-296-5743.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Deadlocked Michigan citizenship voting proposal sets stage for legal battle
