Kavanaugh, state Supreme Court keep proof-of-citizenship off Michigan ballot
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh has denied an emergency request from a group that was insisting its proposal to require voters to prove their citizenship status before voting in Michigan be placed
on the Nov. 3 ballot.
Hours after Kavanaugh's denial was announced by the court on Sept. 3, the Michigan Supreme Court issued an opinion in the matter as well, denying the group's request that the Board of State Canvassers be ordered to accept the ballot proposal, saying such a remedy was outside the court's authority.
Barring another request to a different U.S. Supreme justice, Kavanaugh's denial, which was issued without comment, and the state Supreme Court decision makes it all but certain the proposal will not be put to voters in the November election.
The Secretary of State's office and the Board of State Canvassers are expected to finalize the general election ballot by their deadline on Friday, Sept. 4.
On Monday, Aug. 31, Americans for Citizen Voting filed an emergency appeal with Kavanaugh and the U.S. Supreme Court, asking that the proposal be found proper and order and be put to voters, and saying it had heard nothing from the state Supreme Court on its request with the deadline to finalize the ballot fast approaching.
The Board of State Canvassers, during a session on Aug. 24, had deadlocked 2-2 along partisan lines over whether the group had provided enough valid petition signatures in support, effectively precluding it from being listed on the ballot.
Americans for Citizen Votingargued in its application to Kavanaugh that the state had waited more than five months to reject the signatures and then did so on questions about those from a sample of 1,000 out of more than 700,000 submitted. It also said it made every effort to fix some problems detected by the state, even getting affidavits from some signers who signatures the state said did not match those in the Qualified Voter File.
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But in a response to the application filed on Sept. 2, the state Attorney General's Office said the 1,000-signature sample was common practice and that successful challenges from an outside group and problems detected by the Bureau of Elections staff or signatures rejected by the board left the group some seven valid signatures short of the 629 needed to be validated out of the 1,000-signature sample to be placed on the ballot.
The proposal, if adopted. would require the state to verify a voter's legal citizenship status through presentation of a passport or birth certificate and remove suspected noncitizens from state voter rolls during a 45-day time period. It comes at a time when President Donald Trump has called for similar requirements nationwide as he and Republicans insist that voter fraud is rampant, despite any widespread evidence to back it up.
Noncitizen voting in state and federal elections is already illegal. There have been some limited cases in which noncitizens have been criminally charged for voting or attempting to vote, including in Michigan, but it's been rare and not thought to have altered the outcome of any elections. Voting rights advocates argue that requirements to present birth certificates or passports in order to register to vote is intended to make voting more difficult, to dissuade some people from voting at all.
Contact Todd Spangler: tspangler@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @tsspangler. Staff writer Clara Hendrickson contributed to this report.