DETROIT – Have you ever heard the term “bedsheet ballot?”
Sometimes, back in the days when voters used paper ballots instead of modern technology, there were so many candidates in some elections that the ballot seemed almost as long as a sheet.
For example, a political squabble in Illinois in 1964 led to all the candidates for the legislature running at-large, meaning everyone in the state had to vote in 177 different state house races! The ballot was nearly a yard long, and few stunned voters bothered with every race.
Well, Michigan voters may face a different sort of bedsheet ballot this year, perhaps in both the Aug. 2 primary and especially the Nov. 8 general election.
The problem this year will be ballot proposals — more perhaps than in any other year in history. People are circulating, or soon will be, petitions for proposed constitutional amendments! Petitions for proposed new laws! Proposals to make it easier to vote! Proposals to make it harder to vote! There’s a proposed state constitutional amendment that would keep abortion legal in Michigan even if the U.S. Supreme Court overturns Roe v Wade.
There’s a proposal that would limit the amount of interest payday loan operations can charge; a proposal to decriminalize psychedelic mushrooms, one to recognize a new political party, the Patriot Party, and there is even one that would seek to change the way proposals get on the ballot and what lawmakers can do about them.
Confused yet?
I haven’t even listed all of them. Many of these proposals are not, in fact, likely to make it to the ballot. Organizers have to collect 340,047 valid signatures to get what’s called an initiative petition on the ballot – one which would simply enact a new law.
To get a proposed amendment to the Michigan Constitution on the ballot, 425,059 signatures are needed. Since some always turn out to be invalid, often because voters sign more than once or don’t know what county they live in, organizers need a cushion; in practice, you need about 400,000 signatures for an initiative and half a million for a proposed constitutional amendment.
Nor is getting that many signatures apt to be easy, or cheap; in most cases, those folks with clipboards you see outside shopping malls or highway rest areas are being paid at least $2 a signature.
That means the proposals that do make it to the ballot often have big money, and often secret, or “dark” money behind them.
But while all of these proposals may not make it, it is quite possible that many of them will. Bridge magazine, a well-regarded online publication that covers state issues, estimated that as many as a dozen easily could be on the November ballot.
How does a voter wade through and decide the merits of a dozen ballot proposals, many stated in complex language, when they are standing in a voting booth, with others waiting in line?
They answer is, they don’t. Some may have studied all the questions in advance, and come to the polls with a checklist.
But that number is certainly very few.
That might be different if Michigan had a system like that in Oregon, where every voter is sent a ballot in the mail, after which they have time to study it, do their research and then mark it and send it back. But while it is easier than ever to get an absentee ballot in the state, the presumption still is that most voters go to the polls as they always have, except during the pandemic.
So what do harried voters do when faced with a long list of proposals, some of which they know nothing about? Historically, one of two things: 1) ignore most of the proposals, or 2) vote no, perhaps on the theory that the devil you don’t know is scarier. For example, in November 2012 six proposals made it to the statewide ballot.
Voters said no to five of them, only approving a proposal to abolish the governor’s ability to appoint emergency managers to run financially troubled cities and states.
And that referendum had little effect, because the legislature soon enacted a new emergency manager law, something that may have led to the lead poisoning mess in Flint.
That, by the way, illustrates another problem with voter-initiatives in Michigan: If the legislature fears voters are going to pass something they don’t like, they have a way of sabotaging the people’s will.
Here’s how that works: Four years ago, citizens’ committees collected enough signatures to put initiatives on the ballot, one of which would have increased the minimum wage for workers, including those who depend on tips. The other would have required nearly all employers to provide paid sick leave.
Under an odd quirk in the Michigan Constitution, the legislature can enact any proposed law once it qualifies for the ballot — and then, if it chooses amend it to change the meaning.
That’s exactly what it did in this case, adopting both laws and then weakening them to make them meaningless.
Naturally, there’s a proposed state constitutional amendment this year that would stop them from doing this in the future.
Meantime, however, there’s an enormous battle over the state Board of Canvassers’ ability to certify petitions before they can be circulated, a battle that will be decided by the Michigan Supreme Court. (Hint: It has to do with the size of the union “bug” on petitions printed by organized labor.) More on all this. and on exactly what Michigan voters may be facing, in another column soon.
