Volunteers gather signatures for these ballot proposals in Michigan

Signature gatherers are out in Michigan communities in full force as campaigns work to meet the criteria they need to appear on the ballot. 

It's outside public libraries, outside grocery stores, on any given sidewalk, even if you're in line at a concert, you could see people out gathering signatures for one of the five different ballot proposals. 

Each of the campaigns needs to gather more than 300,000 signatures to appear on the ballot. 

"Politicians have a choice: they can listen to a large number of people, or they can listen to a large pile of money," said Erik Shelley, the direct action manager of Michigan United. "We have, you know, our super volunteers who are out on the street just like at every opportunity, if they see people standing in line, they're asking 'Hey, would you like to get money out of politics?'"

Alongside Michigan United's effort to get money out of politics, there are campaigns to eliminate Michigan's property tax, while others seek to raise taxes by 5% for state education, implement rank choice voting and implement a voter ID law. Depending on the type of change these campaigns want to make, there are different signature thresholds they need to meet. 

Karla Wagner is the mind behind the effort to eliminate Michigan's property tax. 

"Our state is tanking. And if we want to fix that, the best, the easiest, fastest way is to eliminate the property tax. Because then we'll have people be able to afford to stay here," said Wagner. 

She said her campaign has completed its signature gathering and now they have to get them organized to submit them to the State Board of Canvassers. 

"We didn't have paid circulators. All of our circulators were volunteers," Wagner said.

Wagner and Shelley said using volunteers who care about the issue to circulate the petitions helps to provide better information. Their volunteers can talk to voters about what they're signing. If someone can't explain what they're asking you to sign, a legitimate signature gatherer will have a 100-word summary for you to read or the full petition language.