MI GOP Has A Plan For Getting Restrictive Voting Measures Around Guv’s Vetos | Talking Points Memo

Well to be picky here with your example the box didn’t do anything, someone violated the box. And how much are Ring cameras going for now?

With respect to both nouns.

And yet every time RTW has come up to be voted on by the electorate we vote it down.

No so fast! If they get the 340k for an initiated state statute and the R-dominated legislature OKs it within 40 days, then it does indeed become law without being put on the ballot (that only happens if the legislature declines) and it won’t be subject to the governor’s veto power due to Article 2 Section 9 of the MI constitution.

The article is technically correct.

ETA: Ah, I missed this part…

If any law proposed by such petition shall be enacted by the legislature it shall be subject to referendum, as hereinafter provided.

Ballotopedia needs to correct their site as they made it seem like the legislature was the last stop.

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Only point being that, because of assholes, it’s not so easy as just putting it out there. Cameras monitoring doesn’t stop ballots being destroyed, just lets you catch who did it.

The goobers are afraid of representative democracy so I think it is high time for a the federal voting rights law to be passed ASAP
Voting is sacred to me and in a time of a pandemic it is more important than ever to allow easy mail in voting like I did in 2020. I filled out my ballot at home with plenty of research and thought. Then I drove to my county recorder’s office and hand delivered that ballot myownself because Mr DeJoy, new Post Master General, was doing all he could to screw up the mail, even if it was just across town. In my case the county recorder’s office is about a mile from my house but the mail must be collected here in Tucson, driven to Phoenix (120 miles away) to be sorted, then driven those miles back to be delivered. 240 miles instead of one mile. brilliant. That’s the mail system here.

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Forget it, Jake. It’s Missouri. (Or it’s Kansas, or Nebraska, or…)

By “voting it down”, I take you to mean that MO approved the so-called RTW proposal? (I really hate being an at-will employee. I can’t even really bargain as an individual…if someone proposed a union here, I’d vote for it in an instant.)

So let me get this straight: These guys don’t trust the election process and instead want to rely on a petition? Uh…will only registered voters get to sign? Who is going to ensure signatories are doing so legally? What happens when signatures get challenged? I don’t think they’ve thought this through.

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340 000 could also undo such law. What about the fake signatures? Would they need proof? Signature ID? Can a person deliver multiple signatures? How do we verify these signatures? Do they have to be registered voters? Do they have to live in the State? Do they have to show a voter ID card? Can they be people of color? Can they be mailed in? So many questions.

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Thanks for doing the legwork. I can’t see this initiative going anywhere if 67% of the electorate voted to open up voting.

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Signature checking is done at the county level. Petitions go to the Secretary of State’s office. The SoS office can check registration status (you have to be a registered voter for the signature to count). They are then delivered to the counties for checking. The county is responsible for checking the signature against the signature on file. This is usually done by statistical sampling to estimate the proportion of valid signatures. The SB-5 veto referendum generated almost 1.3M signatures. Checking all of them for validity is impossible, even with the manual piece farmed out to the counties.

I doubt there is a challenge process in place for petition signatures.

I don’t get it either. Sixty-seven percent recently voted to expand voting rights and they think the answer is to roll that back? And they’re doing this after they already pissed off voters by trying to have their ballots thrown out? It just feels like they’ve decided that it’s better to lose elections with fealty to Trumpism than actually win. It’s bizarre.

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There is some risk depending on how well-crafted the petition is to obscure its true purpose.

An illustration (from Yes, Prime Minister Episode 2: The Ministerial Broadcast):

Long transcript

HUMPHREY: Bernard, you know what happens. A nice young lady comes up to you. Obviously you want to create a good impression, you don’t want to look a fool, do you?
BERNARD: No.
HUMPHREY: No. So she starts asking you some questions. Mr Woolley, are you worried about the number of young people without jobs?
BERNARD: Yes.
HUMPHREY: Are you worried about the rise in crime among teenagers?
BERNARD: Yes.
HUMPHREY: Do you think there’s a lack of discipline in our comprehensive schools?
BERNARD: Yes.
HUMPHREY: Do you think young people welcome some authority and leadership in their lives?
BERNARD: Yes.
HUMPHREY: Do you think they respond to a challenge?
BERNARD: Yes.
HUMPHREY: Would you be in favour of reintroducing national service?
BERNARD: …Oh. Well, I suppose I might be.
HUMPHREY: Yes or no?
BERNARD: Yes.
HUMPHREY: Of course you would, Bernard. After all you’ve told me, you can’t say no to that. So, they don’t mention the first five questions and they publish the last one.
BERNARD: Is that really what they do?
HUMPHREY: Not the reputable ones, no, but there aren’t many of those. Alternatively, the young lady can get the opposite result.
BERNARD: How?
HUMPHREY: Mr Woolley, are you worried about the danger of war?
BERNARD: Yes.
HUMPHREY: Are you worried about the growth of armaments?
BERNARD: Yes.
HUMPHREY: Do you think there’s a danger in giving young people guns and teaching them how to kill?
BERNARD: Yes.
HUMPHREY: Do you think it’s wrong to force people to take up arms against their will?
BERNARD: Yes.
HUMPHREY: Would you oppose the reintroduction of national service?
BERNARD: Yes.
HUMPHREY: There you are, you see, Bernard. The perfect balanced sample.

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Conservatism is about preserving social hierarchies where the ‘naturally deserving’ people are on the top and the ‘less deserving’ are subservient, it has nothing to do with any consistent principles of governance.

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The governor will be elected in the mid-terms, not in an off-year (which would be this year.)

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FIFY.

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So just another ginned up fundraising scam from the Rs.

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I understand how the process is supposed to work, my point is they’re going to use a system that they are convinced is fraudulent to overturn that fraudulent system. It’s question begging cubed, and with very high stakes. And how is it that a petition signed by 3% of the population can become state law?

If politicians are afraid of the decisions voters will make when they cast their ballots, then the problem lies with the politicians and not the voters. These restrictive laws are not about election security, they are about preserving the job security and advantages of the privileged at the expense of everyone else. Unfortunately, even if HR 1 passes (and I hope it does) , we will still have that other relic of the slave South: Every state gets two senators, no matter their population. So, each senator from California represents about 20 million people while each senator from Alabama represents about 2.5 million people.

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Have some fun with this. Start a counter-petition that is opposite of all the Republican points and then some. Get that on the ballot, then watch heads explode when that version strengthening voter rights becomes law.

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