Americans for Citizens Voting submits 750,000 signatures for voter ID ballot proposal
Americans for Citizens Voting announced it has collected more than 750,000 signatures in hopes of placing its proposal for a new voter ID requirement on the ballot in 2026.
Now, it's up to the Michigan Bureau of Elections and the Board of State Canvassers to confirm their validity.
"We submitted over 750,000 signatures yesterday to the Secretary of State, and now we look forward to a speedy review by the Bureau of Elections and approval by the Board of State Canvassers to get us on the ballot for 2026," said Kristen Combs, general consultant for the ballot proposal campaign.
If passed by the voters, the proposal would create a new voter ID requirement and voter roll verification. That number of signatures, Combs said, is well over the required threshold of 446,198.
"We're well over that total of over 300,000 more than we need and also more than four months early ahead of the July 6th deadline for certification for the ballot," Combs said.
Next, the state Bureau of Elections will verify those petition signatures.
"Now the Bureau of Elections staff will scan in and start the counting process," said Ingham County Clerk Barb Byrum. "So they'll divide the sheets up based on how many signatures, and they ultimately will tally all the signatures. Then they will do a sampling of about a thousand signatures."
That sampling is when the Bureau of Elections pulls 1,000 signatures and checks them against the state voter rolls to ensure they're valid.
"They will present a report to the state Board of Canvassers, and it's the state Board of Canvassers — two Democrats, two Republicans — that will make the official determination of sufficiency or insufficiency of the petition," Byrum said.
The Board of State Canvassers, which meets in Lansing, will have the final vote before the proposal goes before the voters.
CBS News Detroit reached out to Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson's office for comment and is waiting to hear back.
