News & Commentary

“It was actually the first election I would’ve ever voted in, so you can imagine that fact amplified my disappointment,” she says. “I had hoped that the ballot would arrive on time.” But she, like thousands of other Michigan voters, needlessly had their ballots rejected. That's why we sued.

As each of us wrestle with our own anxieties and fears about the health and well-being of family and friends in this unsettling time, we are reminded of how closely connected we are to one another through our immediate communities and across the globe. We also recognize that in times of emergency, many people on the edges of society are often left behind.

The ACLU of Michigan filed a brief today urging the Michigan Supreme Court to reject the legislature’s attempt to undermine the will of the voters by removing citizen-led proposals from the ballot through an anti-democratic maneuver known as “adopt and amend.”

DETROIT – In response to voters overwhelmingly passing three progressive ballot initiatives last November (voting rights expansion, marijuana legalization, and anti-gerrymandering), the Republican-led legislature passed a law during its lame duck session that will make it extremely difficult to gather the petition signatures needed to get any future proposal on the statewide ballot. The most controversial provision in the new law, which Governor Rick Snyder signed, requires that no more than 15 percent of the signatures gathered for a ballot proposal can come from any one of the state's 14 congressional districts.

The ACLU of Michigan and Promote the Vote (PTV), filed a complaint in U.S. District Court asking that the PTV ballot initiative, a measure to expand voting rights in Michigan, be placed on the November 6th ballot. This follows the State Board of Canvassers and Bureau of Elections failure to properly validate the petition signatures PTV was required to gather to place the initiative on the ballot. By failing to certify these signatures, the state has violated the voting rights of Michigan citizens who support the PTV initiative.

The right to vote is at risk for many in Michigan – and your state representative is to blame. Right now, they are poised to quickly pass dangerous legislation intended to restrict and suppress access to the ballot box.

If anyone thought democracy had actually been returned to the residents of Flint, the Receivership Transition Advisory Board (RTAB) appointed by Gov. Rick Snyder just pulled out its hammer and shattered that illusion.

By: Desire Vincent, Associate Director of Communications

On the same day that Gov. Rick Snyder gave short shrift in his State of the State speech to the ongoing Flint crisis his administration created, U.S. Reps. Brenda Lawrence, D-Mich., and Elijah Cummings, D-Md., continued applying pressure in an attempt to hold accountable those responsible for the poisoning of a city’s water supply.