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Why Michigan Effort to Legalize Marijuana May Stall

Paul Ausick

Published: May 18, 2016 10:40 am

Last Updated: January 13, 2020 7:53 am

Supporters of an initiative to legalize recreational use of marijuana in Michigan have until June 1 to submit the required 252,523 valid voter signatures that would put the measure on the state’s November ballot. So far more than 300,000 signatures have been collected, but that’s where the story gets sticky.

Michigan’s Board of State Canvassers, the body responsible for validating the signatures, is deadlocked over a policy revision related to proving validity of signatures gathered outside a 180-day collection period. The state’s Bureau of Elections has recommended that loosening the rules, but the canvassing board is evenly split on adopting the new rules. The split falls along party lines, with the two Democrats favoring the new rules and the two Republicans opposing them.

Under the current rules, signatures collected prior to the 180-day window may be counted (“rehabilitated”) if collectors can prove that the signers were registered to vote during the window. That requires an affidavit from individual election clerks, a laborious and time-consuming process.

The rule change favored by Democrats would allow the canvassing board to use the state’s qualified voter database to verify a signer’s voting status.

An additional complication comes from the state’s Republican-controlled legislature, in which the Senate already has approved a bill that eliminates signature “rehabilitation.” The House has yet to take action on the bill.

The legalization proposal is being pushed by a group called MILegalize, and it is being touted as the least restrictive of any state’s. The measure has no residency requirement, meaning that the recreational market would be open to businesspeople from anywhere. The proposed tax rates are low, there are no requirements that a license holder operate both a grow operation and a store, and there is no cap on the number of licenses available. Jeff Hank, director of MILegalize told The Detroit News:

If we get this on the books, it’s going to make Colorado look like the heavy hand of big government, compared to what we’re doing.

MILegalize wants to gather a total of 350,000 signatures before the June 1 deadline in an effort to sidestep the fight over “rehabilitation” and get the measure on the ballot.