DELTA TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) — Ballot campaigns to expand voting options, restrict payday loans and overhaul Michigan’s citizens’ initiative process have cleared stages ahead of the state Board of Elections, allowing organizers to start collecting hundreds of thousands of signatures to qualify for the 2022 ballot.
Canvassers have approved summaries to appear above five petitions for public distribution.
Promote the Vote wants to create more than a week of early voting, allow all voters to request an absentee ballot for future elections, and require prepaid postage on return envelopes. His constitutional amendment — proposed months after Republicans launched an anti-veto initiative that they said would improve election integrity but Democrats say would reduce the vote — would also ban attempts to “decrease unreasonable” the right to vote and enshrine the duty of the council to certify the results after Donald Trump. unprecedented attempt to cancel the 2020 elections.
Michiganders for Fair Lending hopes to lower the interest rates payday lenders charge that must be repaid within two weeks. The ballot committee, like Promote the Vote, appears to have the financial backing to distribute the petitions widely.
Two proposals for constitutional amendments supported by MI’s voting rights also moved forward. One has similarities with the Promote the Vote measure. The other would allow more time to collect signatures for ballots, allow referendums on laws that spend money, and eliminate the Legislature’s ability to pass bills initiated without the governor’s signature. Instead, the initiatives would go to voters.
The canvassers also approved the summary of a petition seeking to decriminalize the production and possession of psychedelic mushrooms.
In total, canvassers have approved summaries for a dozen active ballots in 2022 – including those that would raise the minimum wage, limit the duration of emergency pandemic restrictions without legislative approval and enshrine the right to abortion. in the state constitution.
