Great Lakes Wire

A proposed constitutional amendment on the Michigan ballot undercuts the views of an overwhelming majority of voters who support photo ID requirements in elections, says election integrity advocate Jason Snead, executive director of the Honest Elections Project.

Proposal 2 on the November ballot was championed by “Promote The Vote,” which is financed by the ACLU, teachers’ unions and the Sixty Thirty Fund.

“Americans overwhelmingly approve of photo ID requirements for voting, and progressives are on the wrong side of the issue,” Snead wrote in an email to Great Lakes Wire. “That’s why Promote the Vote crafted Proposition 2 the way it did: so they can claim, disingenuously, that the measure preserves voter ID. The real intent is to box out lawmakers and prevent the current law—which has a broad exemption allowing anyone to vote without showing ID—from ever being improved.”

Jason Snead, executive director of the Honest Elections Project | Honest Elections Project

Snead added that the proposal “pushes Michigan closer to being a vote-by-mail state while banning ID requirements for those ballots, too. Promote the Vote is trying to trick people into voting for a left-wing agenda that weakens voting safeguards because they know if they were honest they would lose.”

A recent Gallup survey showed that eight of 10 likely voters support voter ID requirements. The result are in line with earlier polls that show strong support, across demographic lines, for voter ID requirements.

Proposal 2 “preempt efforts to enact stricter voter ID laws,” according to the Detroit Free Press.

The proposal would also require the state to provided postage for absentee ballot applications and ballots. And, under the proposal, municipalities would be required to provide drop boxes for voters using mail ballots.

A competing constitutional amendment proposal, backed by Secure MI Vote, would enact a stricter voter ID requirement than current law, prohibit the secretary of state’s office from mass mailing absentee ballots, and provide for the funding of ID cards for those with no valid ID.

Spokesman for Secure MI Vote Jamie Roe said that when the Michigan Bureau of Elections finishes validating the group’s petition signatures, the question goes before the state legislature for approval. Their reform efforts are finished if voters approve Proposal 2

“We are working very hard against [Proposal 2] and feel very optimistic we will defeat it,” Roe told Great Lakes Wire.