A bipartisan state elections board meets Friday to decide if the campaign to ban political committees linked to utilities and public contractors has gathered enough signatures to qualify for the November ballot.
A preliminary analysis released last week by the Michigan Bureau of Elections found the Michiganders for Money Out of Politics campaign gathered enough signatures with just a small cushion of extras.
But the business-aligned group Protect MI Free Speech argues that random sample missed many problematic signatures – enough to stop the initiative.
“There’s more than enough questionable signatures in there to invalidate what we’re looking at right now, and so we’re following the rules,” said John Sellek with Protect MI Free Speech. “We’ve submitted all the information we need to get in there and we’re going to finally have an answer by Friday.”
Christy McGillivray with Michiganders for Money Out of Politics said it is no surprise that business groups want to keep the question off the ballot.
“They’re not going to win,” she said. “We know we have the signatures.”
She said challenging the petitions before the Michigan Board of State Canvassers is the “cheapest and easiest” way to try to defeat the campaign.
“It’s long overdue for the people of Michigan to have the chance to rein in corporate money and special interests that have way too much influence over politics.” she said. “We know the board of elections agrees with us. We have the signatures. They’re not going to be able to get away with it.”
She said the campaign has carefully examined its filing to ensure it hit the 356,958 signatures of registered voters required to qualify for the ballot.
The four-person Board of State Canvassers is comprised of two Republicans and two Democrats. Any action by the board requires a simple majority with at least one vote from a member of each party. Whatever the board decides will almost certainly not be the final word since the losing side can challenge the decision in court.
