State elections officials say the campaign to reverse Michigan’s emergency manager law appears to have gathered enough signatures to qualify for the November ballot. But, as we hear from Michigan Public Radio’s Rick Pluta, the petition drive still faces at least one more challenge.
About 160,000 petition signatures were required. The state Bureau of Elections says the group 'Stand Up For Democracy' has gathered more than 203,000 and that’s plenty more names than they needed to qualify for the ballot. But opponents of the referendum drive say they will challenge the petition for technical violations of the law that specifies the size of the type used on petitions.
An evenly divided, bipartisan state elections board may reject the petitions on those grounds, or it could rule the campaign was still in substantial compliance of the law.
Either way, the losers are very likely to take their grievance to the Michigan Court of Appeals to decide the fate of the ballot question.