Michigan canvassers approve 100-word summary for citizenship-verification amendment after hours of debate

The Michigan Board of State Canvassers approved a revised 100-word ballot summary on May 16, 2025, for a proposed constitutional amendment that would require documentary proof of U.S. citizenship for some voter-registration and absentee-voting processes and direct the secretary of state to verify citizenship in the state’s voter rolls.

The deputy director of elections, speaking for Director Breeder (who is on leave), read the board’s draft summary into the record. “Constitutional amendment to add requirement to verify citizenship by showing birth certificate, passport, and or other documents for voter registration, eliminate affidavit alternative for those without photo ID when voting, add requirement to provide photo ID or driver's license or partial Social Security number to receive or vote absentee, require secretary of state to review voter rolls to verify citizens and remove noncitizens using documents in government records, prohibit counting ballots from voters whose citizenship hasn't been verified unless voters show documents to secretary within 6 days post election, require hardship program for obtaining required documents at state expense, subject violations to civil criminal penalties,” the deputy director read verbatim during the meeting.

Supporters of the amendment, representing the sponsor Americans for Citizen Voting — Michigan, said the draft summary should be clearer and proposed edits. “If you had to summarize it in one sentence, it's that only U.S. citizens can vote,” said Kurt O'Keefe, a sponsor representative, urging that point be prominent in the summary. Sponsors also asked the board to emphasize the secretary of state’s review duty and to frame enforcement language less as criminal penalties and more as civil enforcement.

Opponents and neutral commenters pressed the board from the other side. Mark Brewer, counsel to Promote the Vote Action, told the board the current petition “is not remotely identical to the one you signed off on last month,” and proposed alternate wording that explicitly flagged the effect on the state’s existing registrants. Several public commenters, including Cheryl Hawkins of Paul Med Michigan and volunteers with Voters Not Politicians, said the measure could impose heavy burdens on seniors, nursing-home residents and people who have lost documents in disasters. “Michigan citizens living in nursing homes … do not have birth certificates or passports with them,” Hawkins said, arguing that obtaining documents is often difficult for long-term care residents.

Attorneys and policy experts attending the meeting also focused on the amendment’s mechanics. Dickinson Wright attorney Dan Ziegler told the board the petition would give the secretary of state an expanded role and could create separate administrative tracks for state/local and federal elections. “This petition … would give that power to the Secretary of State,” Ziegler said, describing a provision the petition uses to let the secretary determine whether an applicant’s claim of citizenship is “more likely than not” true.

Board members spent several hours questioning sponsors and opponents, asking about retroactivity, implementation timelines (the petitions reference registration changes for people who register after Dec. 18, 2026, and the measure—if approved by voters—would take effect in early 2027) and how provisional ballots would be handled when citizenship can’t be verified before an election. Petition sponsors said they expect the secretary of state to use federal, state and local records and to coordinate with clerks; opponents warned that large-scale verification of millions of records in a short period could produce many provisional ballots and administrative confusion.

After a lunch recess and additional drafting, staff presented a revised 100-word summary that moved the secretary-of-state verification language forward and added a short description of how unverified ballots would be treated. The board voted to approve the revised 100-word summary as presented at the meeting. The board did not sign the printed petition form; staff and petitioners identified typographical errors in the petition text and agreed the sponsors will withdraw and resubmit a corrected petition form for later consideration.

What was decided: the board approved the revised 100-word ballot summary for circulation and postponed action on the petition’s printed form until petitioners submit a corrected copy. What was not decided: the legal validity of the petition’s provisions—several potential conflicts with federal law and the practical details of implementation would be matters for future administrative rulemaking or litigation.

The board also considered several routine, technical updates to certified voting-system components and approved them by motion, including component replacements that Dominion and Hart InterCivic reported as commercially obsolete and replaced with supported parts.

The board said staff would post the approved 100-word summary and advised petition sponsors to submit corrected petition forms; staff also said it will present a staff report on several signature-validation questions at a future meeting. The board recessed and set follow-up items for its next session.

Ending note: the board’s action clears a ballot summary that will be used on the petition form circulated to gather signatures; the content of the full constitutional amendment text remains unchanged and will be subject to separate review when petitioners resubmit the corrected printed form for the board’s form approval.