Early this month, a group called Americans for Citizen Voting (ACV) aiming to tighten voter ID rules and require proof of citizenship to register in Michigan announced it has collected more than enough signatures to make the November 3 ballot.
Although the group needs to collect at least 446,196 valid voter signatures — which it claims it already has — it says it will continue to garner John Hancocks for “padding” before turning in the petitions at the end of this month for review, validation, and certification by the Board of State Canvassers.
The proposal, which if approved by voters would be enshrined in the state constitution, would require Michiganders to provide proof of citizenship to register to vote, show a photo ID each election to have their ballot counted, and require the Secretary of State to purge the voter rolls of every person whose citizenship cannot be verified. Another, similar proposal (Committee to Protect Voters Rights) was approved by the state as to form early last year, but may have folded its tent in deference to the ACV effort. If both proposals make the ballot and are approved by voters, the one with the highest number of Yes votes would prevail.
If state officials validate signatures for the ACV proof-of-citizenship petition, it would become Proposal 2 on Michigan’s general election ballot, joining a constitutional convention referendum (Proposal 1) that will automatically go before voters.
How was this ballot committee able to pull this off so quickly, nearly five months before the filing deadline? Significantly, unlike some other recent Michigan ballot proposals that relied exclusively on volunteers to gather signatures, ACV reported paying at least $5.4 million to petition and signature gathering firms.
The effort has been almost exclusively funded by two non-profits that are not legally required to disclose their donors, Restoration of America and the Liberty Initiative Fund. The two organizations gave the ballot committee a combined $4.9 million in 2025.
If we do a cost-benefit analysis of the ballot committee’s undertaking, we know that petition management firms sometimes pay circulators as high as $10-$20 per signature depending on proximity to the qualification deadline. Why launch an expensive petition drive using direct mail and paid circulators unless, in the end, there will be an electoral reward?
Could there be a hidden agenda behind what appears to be an innocuous ballot question? When more closely examined, the motive behind this proposal appears to be to erect bureaucratic barriers to register to vote and create opportunities to challenge voters who have already registered.
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Spot on Bill!
When a party can’t win under the rules, it tries to change the rules to give it an advantage whether it’s gerrymandering, a strategic reduction in polling places, reducing voting hours or making it more difficult to register to vote. For a little insurance, station armed troops outside polling stations to discourage “certain people” from going inside.
One last idea for the poor downtrodden politicos who are afraid of everyone voting: bring in Putin, Xi, Ergogan and Kim Jong-Un. I’m sure they’ve got some time-tested tips for never losing an election.
I find myself somewhat surprised to discover Bill’s feelings are so completely in agreement with my own. But let me make some technical points:
1) Even the weak evidence cited to support the pro-petition position is overstated. Those supposed 16 non-citizen voters didn’t actually VOTE. According to carefully conducted follow up investigation, most of them never voted, or were actually citizens. The true number of votes cast by non-citizens in Michigan elections is apparently even smaller. Not exactly zero, but very close.
2) If the actual goal is to discourage significant fraud by non-citizens, it would be far more effective to conduct routine checks of the voter rolls for non-citizens (there are Federal databases which can be cross-checked) then to further winnow down the cases that appear to violate the law. Eventually examining the final handful of cases one-by-one, including law enforcement interviews with the “suspects”, it would be possible to make enforcement routine. In the end, some of the cases would have to be dismissed because the illegal voter will turn out to be cognitively challenged, but if even a handful of cases were prosecuted following each election cycle, it would certainly do a lot to keep the legal requirement in the public mind, and to prevent anybody from trying to mount an organized effort.
But of course such a process wouldn’t have the (intended) effect of hobbling voter registration.
3) Finally, and most interestingly, the whole argument has been overtaken by political developments. As Eitan Hersh has documented, there is no longer much reason to think that burdening voter drives with additional requirements would benefit the Republican Party. Because of changing demographic trends in voting, weak-voting people are almost exactly evenly divided by party. But the Republicans, remembering 1992 continue to fight along that line, and Democrats, equally unaware continue to defend the same old trenches. The impact of adopting the proposed amendment would be hard to detect in the election returns, or in the partisan composition of the legislature.
An additional technical note: Somebody should carefully read the proposed language, and consider the data already available to the Secretary of State. I believe they already have citizenship data, gathered in other guises. Given that the federal law creating postcard registration for federal elections doesn’t include any requirement for proving citizenship, and given that the law simply states that such registrations “shall be accepted”, how exactly would the additional requirement work?
I can imagine that the Secretary of State branch offices might refuse to accept a registration as part of the drivers license process, allthough it’s hard to see any “compelling governmental interest” that justifies requiring redundant proof of citizenship. That might very well fall within the office’s permitted range of discretion, so it might flipflop with changes in partisan control.
But if a local clerk receives a mail-in postcard, how could they refuse to place the applicant’s name onto the rolls?
We are living in a police state.
Nowadays, MSP and local police already have auto registration and no-fault auto insurance information when they run your plate during a stop.
Nevertheless, the cops have a right to demand your driver’s license, auto registration and no-fault insurance certificate and have the power of arrest for a misdemeanor if you cannot produce these papers on demand. Why? Because it gives them a way to raise government funding through fines and court costs. It also gives suburban police ways to harass unwanted minorities from entering their jurisdiction.
This same sort of mentality is spreading to voting registration. Make the process so difficult that citizens will avoid it altogether.
I do not have a U.S. passport and have not seen my birth certificate for decades. It is likely buried in a drawer somewhere – and if I cannot locate it I guess I will have to see the County Clerk to get a copy – or avoid voting in the future.
“The lady doth protest too much, methinks”
Are you serious?
“When more closely examined, the motive behind this proposal appears to be to erect bureaucratic barriers to register to vote and create opportunities to challenge voters who have already registered.”
Showing an ID TO VOTE has nothing to do with registering to vote!
To “challenge voters”? How? Only folks challenged would be NON CITIZENS!
Heck the NYC Major announced he requires a photo ID to SHOVEL SNOW IN NYC! (Look it up.)
Sorry this post is just ____ as voting is only for US CITIZENS.
Why is that hard to grasp?
Non-citizens engaged in voting is a non-problem – however organized vote fraud has occurred in Michigan in the cities of Muskegon and Hamtramck. It likely also has occurred in Detroit. These were situations where the alleged fraud was credibly flagged by city officials and reported to authorities
These are real issues that have been investigated by the MSP and respective boards of canvassers.
The minutes of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers provide evidence of the nature of ongoing election fraud that has occurred. The policy of Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy – a Democrat – is NOT to pursue criminal prosecution in these matters. The suspects are often those with Democratic Party ties.
The late Jackie Currie’s City Clerk office in Detroit was investigated and her absentee voting program was placed in receivership by order of circuit court a judge back in the early 2000s. The FBI also investigated. These were serious matters that may have affected results – including the mayoral election in which Freeman Hendrix lost despite have a comfortable lead in polling against Kwame Kilpatrick.
The receivership order was obtained by a Democratic Party candidate – not the GOP.
Jackie Currie and her husband Charmie Currie, Jr in 1964 were charged by the Wayne County Prosecutor with felony absentee voting registration violations, but they entered into a plea agreement where charges against her were dropped and a misdemeanor conviction was pled to by her husband. She went on to become a major influential and respected political figure in Detroit’s black community until her passing in 2008.
Armani Asad, a Hamtramck City Council candidate, was convicted of ballot harvesting occurring in 2013. Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette prosecuted it but a Detroit judge imposed only a $100 fine with no jail time.
Statistical irregularities have been cited in election results in both Detroit and Hamtramck for many years that suggest possible major electoral violations.
These cases were real examples of concerted electoral violations that were serious and may have influenced voting results. This is a far more serious matter than non-citizen voting.
You have to wonder why such an effort is being made to address a problem that is virtually non-existent. Or, maybe we don’ need to wondert. It is clearly for the purpose of gaining an electoral advantage by minimizing legitimate Democrat votes. I thank Bill for recognizing what is really going on.
My guess is that the minority of the population that has passports are more Democratic than the electorate as a whole, since they travel, are likely educated, and are interested in other countries. Or at least they are anti-MAGA. We were on recent holiday trips to France and Japan and there wasn’t a Trumper in either tour. On the other hand, Dems should have no rational objection to showing a driver’s license of other state picture ID at the polls. I’m almost 74, and still sometimes have to produce it to buy a $10 bottle of red wine.
Perhaps election fraud in Michigan is statistically non-existent. This is not true as to the City of Detroit and Wayne County, both entities being rife with inherent systemic patterns of disfunction. It becomes somewhat comical when vote counters tape used pizza boxes to the windows of the room they are mis-counting the votes in, hoping that will conceal their hi-jinx.
But even if all municipalities in Michigan were pure as newly fallen snow, this ballot proposal is still needed, as it is a preventative measure and protects the integrity of our voting process.
When other states are examined, it is clear that voting fraud is rampant. Does anyone believe that JFK really won Illinois and Texas in 1960? Is it possible that there has never been any voting irregularities in C(r)ook County Illinois? Why were so many ballots in 2020 just marked for Biden, who spent most of the campaign hiding in his basement? You would think that some other Demoncrats would have been marked on the ballot, if only for appearance sake. Remember the hidden camera catching miscreants in Georgia putting the same Biden ballot in the vote counting machine 64,597 times?
When the USA is facing an onslaught of illegal aliens, such as is the case in Minnesota, it is prudent to take all necessary precautions to ensure that non-citizens are precluded from accessing the polls, and producing a VALID birth certificate is a procedure worth enshrining in the Michigan Constitution.
A VALID birth certificate is proof of US citizenship. That’s the basis for this proposal. It is designed to keep those who have no basis to vote from voting. If it causes a bit of frustration when registering to vote, it will result in much more satisfaction with the election results.
We simply must weed out those types who have attended the Learing Center’s of Minnesota from casting ballots in Michigan elections.
After Droolin’ Joe’s 81 million vote miracle in 2020, no one should trust any aspect of Michigan (or American) elections administration until they are proven valid, element by element. Half of Michigan’s population no longer accepts the broad, vacuous assurances of the Lansing elites that our elections are conducted fairly and properly. Benford’s Law says they are not.
We have a Secretary of State who has resisted vetted our voting rolls and is resisting the DoJ September 25th lawsuit demanding the voting rolls so they can be vetted by the Feds. Jocelyn Benson is determined to confirm the very worst fears of many Michigan voters.
You don’t find what you don’t look for. It is not the responsibility of political activists to prove election improprieties and ineligible voters. It is the responsibility of election officials to prove – with actual data and investigations – that elections & voter rolls are fair and proper. Such proofs do not exist today, despite empty, sedative assurances from proponents of the status quo.
Michigan is very closely split ideologically. Elections are a winner take all event. If you want the public to peacefully accept election outcomes, you have to restore the confidence in elections which was shattered in 2020. Voter roll integrity is just one element requiring confidence building.
We will no longer accept the leftist three step swindle:
1) It never happens
2) It happens, but rarely
3) It is good that it happens
According to The National News Desk report of Jun. 17 ,2025,” FBI gives Congress intel on alleged Chinese plot to create fake mail in ballots in 2020 “….intelligence report partially documented ,but was recalled before it could be fully investigated”. Much debate exists on the role that ‘ fake news’ and ‘News suppression’ influenced the 2020 Election .Is Election Integrity not on the agendas of the Extremists now in control of the Democratic Party. Congress has the ability (perhaps not the will), via legislation, to provide I.D. Freely available to all Citizens. However ,to do so would eliminate Sen Schumer’s and the Party alibi.
I attended a GOP meeting on this subject and it was stressed that the birth certificate or passport presentation would NOT be required of currently registered voters but rather individuals that are initially registering as voters in Michigan.
The bigger problem in Michigan elections is that voter registration rolls are never being regularly purged due to prohibitive cost. As a result we have 150-year olds registered to vote and college towns where students who registered decades ago but have not voted in decades are still registered as active – even though it is clear that those students no longer resided in the voting jurisdiction. As a result the numbers in Ann Arbor are skewed and a city ballot referendum needs far more signatures than would ordinarily be required since ballot access requirements demand that a certain threshold percentage of active voters be obtained to achieve ballot status. In Ann Arbor there are far more registered voters than there are city residents recorded by the U.S. Census.
In 2008, for example, in Ann Arbor, 10,000 newly-registered voters had applied within a few months of the November election; a large percentage of these were out-of-state students who wished to vote in the presidential election but left the state within a few years, after completing their studies at University of Michigan. Many, if not most, failed to cancel their City of Ann Arbor voter registration before returning home. Unless these students had wished to fully move to Ann Arbor without intent to return to their initial residence before their enrollment, they should have never been registered in the first place by the Ann Arbor City Clerk. As a result, every election cycle, the addition of many, many students are added and thousands upon thousands are never purged.
Political campaign committees in Ann Arbor are aware of this phenomenon and target Ann Arbor students who may not be actual bona fide residents of the City of Ann Arbor, but nevertheless register to vote and do vote in presidential elections, as a high percentage of these student voters also will vote for local election candidates
25% of U of M’s Ann Arbor student body are non citizen foreigners.
Care to speculate on how many are voting illegally?
The number is not zero. Case in point: Haoxiang Gao, a citizen and national of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
Keep in mind that many of these students also register in their home state, so they end up voting TWICE; once in person in A2, and once by absentee in their home state. Try cleaning up THAT mess!!