The fate of a sweeping abortion rights proposal in Michigan will proceed to the November ballot only with judicial intervention after the State Board of Canvassers deadlocked on its approval along party lines on Wednesday.
The vote was 2-2, and the issue for the two Republican members of the Board of Canvassers was the spacing between words in the petition text.
Supporters of the proposed amendment will now have to petition the Michigan Supreme Court to decide whether voters will be able to decide if abortion remains legal in the state.
“I look forward to the Michigan Supreme Court taking up this case as quickly as possible,” U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin tweeted shortly after the deadlocked vote. “The 730,000+ people who added their signatures to this ballot deserve to be heard.”
If the proposal is approved, Michigan will join a growing number of states in which abortion rights will be on the ballot in November, including Vermont, Kentucky, Montana and California.
“The people — not the government, and not politicians — should get to decide whether we enshrine the Roe standards into our constitution or accept the 1931 ban on all abortions, with no exceptions,” Slotkin said. “I hope the Supreme Court makes that clear.”
The petitions for the ballot proposal gathered about 750,000 signatures, far more than the 425,000 required. Abortion tied with inflation as the most-important issue according to a recent poll, and a majority of Michiganders support a woman’s right to choose according to another.
If the measure makes it to the ballot, and if it is approved by voters, it would enshrine into Michigan’s constitution not only protections for abortion, but for other reproduction health services, including birth control, in-vitro fertilization, and prenatal care.
Another proposal that would have made changes to Michigan’s elections — Promote the Vote — will not see the November ballot because of a deadlock. In addition to establishing early voting, Promote the Vote would have required drop boxes for absentee voter applications and ballots in every municipality in Michigan.
Photo from the 2018 Women’s March in Lansing.
