I concur and agree with the remarks by my colleague on the other side of the aisle from the Upper Peninsula, and this really does demonstrate that this should be not just a bipartisan issue—a nonpartisan issue. We hear about these examples every single cycle of people gathering petitions either for a candidate to put on the ballot or a ballot proposal to put on the ballot, telling lies to voters in order to get their signature for their effort. Over the years, Republicans and Democrats alike have been harmed; both candidates and voters. You might recall a few years ago, a slew of Republican candidates for governor were defrauded by people they had hired and paid per signature to get their names on the ballot, and later found out that these people were just putting fake signatures on the petitions and they got knocked off the ballot. Or on the ballot proposal end, where because people are getting paid per signature, it is a financial incentive for them to say anything and do anything to get your signature, including straight up lying to you in order to get you to sign on.
How many of you have experienced this? We are in the Legislature. We are more in tune about what policies are moving toward the ballot. The average voter is just being lied to and it’s a wish and a prayer that somebody is telling them the truth when they ask for their signature. There was a viral video on Twitter that just was circulated or just went around from Sam Robinson from Detroit one million, a reporter, who was literally almost violently accosted by a circulator who was not only lying about what was on the ballot proposal but then got aggressive, and when Sam said, Who told you to say this? He goes, I don’t know, this is what I was just told to say.
This removes this financial scheme for volatility in the circulating process. I will tell you, of the 26 states that have a ballot proposal process or an initiative process, 10 of them have banned this payment scheme, including Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Montana, North Dakota, Oregon, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming. If you look at the states, this is not a partisan issue. You’ve got states from Oregon to Oklahoma saying, We want to have safeguards for our voters during the petition circulating process. This is mainstream legislation. This protects the voter. This protects candidates. This protects the integrity of the ballot proposal, and I urge a “yes” vote on this legislation.
The following bill was read a third time:
Senate Bill No. 530, entitled
A bill to amend 1954 PA 116, entitled “Michigan election law,” (MCL 168.1 to 168.992) by adding section 482g.
The question being on the passage of the bill,
Senator Moss offered the following substitute:
Substitute (S-1).
The substitute was adopted, a majority of the members serving voting therefor.
The question being on the passage of the bill,
The bill was passed, a majority of the members serving voting therefor, as follows: