BIAS VS. BETTERMENT
MI Legalize, a local initiative to get recreational cannabis on the next ballot, is now suing Michigan after the state’s elections board claimed that activists did not get the proper number of voter signatures needed for a future statewide vote on recreational cannabis, according to Detroit Free Press.
In early June, The Board of State Canvassers rejected Michigan’s recreational cannabis petitions with a 4-0 vote. The board claimed 137,029 of the 354,000 signatures collected by The Michigan Comprehensive Cannabis Law Reform Committee did not meet requirements to get recreational cannabis on the November ballot. This is because the state board claimed 137,029 signatures obtained over 180 days prior to being submitted were “stale.”
Since January, the statewide group of cannabis activists have been stating in testimony at hearings in Lansing and through various announcements that it is unconstitutional and against state law to require all the signatures be gathered within 180 days of being submitted.
The group claims that the 180-day limit on signatures was created to ensure that those signing petitions are currently registered voters within the state of Michigan. The leaders of MI Legalize are going to use the state’s records to show the signatures all still meet this requirement, regardless of the date they were received.
This 180-day limit was also first enacted in regards to ballot questions that aim to change the state’s constitution. The proposed cannabis petition did not seek to change the constitution, making the 180-day policy unnecessary.
It is claimed by several petition groups that this 180-day limit disallows grassroots groups the opportunity to get policies on the ballot. Many petition groups like cannabis and environmental groups don’t have the resources to pay staff to obtain signatures, and instead rely on unpaid volunteers, making the task to obtain signatures more difficult.
The 180-day requirement used to be a policy that wasn’t regularly enacted by the state elections board, however Governor Rick Snyder just signed this requirement into law on June 8, immediately following the ruling against the signatures in question by The Board of State Canvassers. Snyder defended his controversial new bill in a news release, “Establishing reasonable time limits on when signatures can be collected helps ensure the issues that make the ballot are the ones that matter most to Michiganders.”
The lawsuit filed by MI Legalize claims that the old policy and new version of the law are both unconstitutional. The group filed its lawsuit in Michigan’s Court of Claims and appears optimistic for its success, as one Board Member of MI Legalize, Debra Young, shared in an email to supporters, “We have filed and we will prevail!”
