News

News

Petitions ...

It's that time of year again

The midterms are just 14 months away and the petitions are starting to appear. They generally fall into the two main categories of candidates or issues, and following is a brief overview of what's out there:

Candidate Petitions

For most elected offices, candidates must receive a specified amount of signatures to be nominated to the ballot, even candidates running for re-election. You can only sign one petition for each office, unless there are multiple positions such as city councils and township or school boards. For those offices, you can sign the same number of different candidates' petitions as there are open seats.

Issue Petitions / Ballot Initiatives

Do your own research on the issues before you sign because the person circulating the petition may not answer your questions correctly. They are not legally bound to be truthful or they may not be knowledgeable. 

WBLDems has not yet endorsed any 2026 ballot initiatives but we may do so sometime soon. However ...

We suggest you consider not signing these:

• PROVE IT MICHIGAN and AMERICANS FOR CITIZEN VOTING  These two initiatives would require proof of citizenship for EVERYONE who is ALREADY registered to vote, and those who plan to register. It would disenfranchise the over 60% of MI citizens who do not have a passport or the 2.2 million women with birth certificates that don't match their married legal names. See this BridgeMI opinion about these proposals.

• AxMITax,  Eliminate property tax -  This proposal would cut over $17 billion in funding for schools, roads, recreation and public safety.  The proposal lacks a workable replacement to make up the funds and could cause under funding for social services.  See this proposal info from MLive.

Learn more about these, you may want to sign some:

• Michiganders For Money Out of Politics (MMOP) or MOP UP MICHIGAN!is a proposal to get big money out of our elections. MMOP is a grassroots campaign working toward a statewide ballot initiative to ban political contributions from regulated corporations and major state contractors. The MMOP coalition includes Clean Water Action, Climate Cabinet, Detroit Action, Michigan League of Conservation Voters, Michigan United Action, MOSES Action, and Voters Not Politicians. 

• Invest In Michigan Kids would add an additional 5% tax on annual taxable income over $1million for joint filers and $500,000 for single filers.  This tax would be deposited into the State School Aid Fund to be used exclusively on local school district classrooms.

• Ranked MI Vote  would implement ranked choice voting where instead of picking just one candidate, voters would rank them in order of their personal preference.  If no one wins a  majority of first-choice votes, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and the votes are redistributed.

• Paid Family Leave - Ballot proposal language has not been approved yet.

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