Only one of about 10 Michigan initiative petitions in circulation has submitted signatures in time to appear on the November ballot.
A group working to cap service fees on payday loans — “Michiganders for Fair Lending” — said it turned in more than 400,000 signatures to the Secretary of State Wednesday.
Dallas Lenear, the group's treasurer, said he’s confident those signatures will stand up to scrutiny. Several Republican candidates for governor were booted from their party's primary ballot over suspected fraudulent signatures.
Lenear said the field team managing his group's signature campaign is up to the task.
"They have very, very sophisticated software that roots out any fraud, and so they have been able to successfully run signature drives — hundreds of signature drives," he said.
Multiple high-profile petitions — including one to raise the minimum wage — said they are choosing to file late and aim to get on the 2024 ballot instead.
They said the extra time is to build a signature cushion to ensure they won’t dip below the ballot-qualifying threshold if some are found invalid.
