RMGN Article II (Elections)

by: William Allen Simpson

Sat Jul 19, 2008 at 04:12:16 AM EDT

The RMGN site finally appears to have an electronic version of the petition language.  The petition separately lists the changes, followed by "Provisions of existing constitution altered or abrogated by proposal, if adopted".

This posting attempts to show the changes to Article II (Elections) by a literal difference of the two parts.  Note that by listing sections in the latter part, but not in the former part, this removes the latter language by implication.

While I agree with some of the proposed changes, the poorly drafted language makes the proposal unpalatable, and may have accidentally abrogated sections that should not have been removed.

Other problems should be detailed in the comments.

Sec. 1.

Every citizen of the United States who has attained the age of 21 18 years, who has resided in this state six months, who is neither an illegal alien nor a legal resident alien, and who meets the requirements of local residence provided by law, shall be an elector and qualified to vote in any election except as otherwise provided in this constitution. The legislature shall define residence for voting purposes.

Sec. 2.

The legislature may by law exclude persons from voting because of mental incompetence or commitment to a jail or penal institution.

Sec. 3.

For purposes of voting in the election for president and vice-president of the United States only, the legislature may by law establish lesser residence requirements for citizens who have resided in this state for less than six months and may waive residence requirements for former citizens of this state who have removed herefrom. The legislature shall not permit voting by any person who meets the voting residence requirements of the state to which he has removed.

Sec. 4.

The legislature shall enact laws to regulate the time, place and manner of all nominations and elections, except as otherwise provided in this constitution or in the constitution and laws of the United States. The legislature shall enact laws to preserve the purity of elections, to preserve the secrecy of the ballot, to guard against abuses of the elective franchise, including enactment of laws for the prevention and punishment of election and petition fraud, to require that post election audits of the vote records and tabulations be conducted on a regular basis in order to insure the accuracy of the vote count and to require that the results of such audits be open to the public, and to provide for a system of voter registration and absentee voting. An elector who timely requests an absent voter ballot shall receive such a ballot without giving a reason. Any voting system or device used in the state shall produce durable paper records allowing verification that the vote was accurately recorded. No state or local government official having responsibility for administering or supervising an election shall endorse or give political support to any candidate or ballot question in that election. No law shall be enacted which permits a candidate in any partisan primary or partisan election to have a ballot designation except when required for identification of candidates for the same office who have the same or similar surnames.

Sec. 5.

Except for special elections to fill vacancies, or as otherwise provided in this constitution, all elections for national, state, county and township offices shall be held on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November in each even-numbered year or on such other date as members of the congress of the United States are regularly elected.

Sec. 6.

Whenever any question is required to be submitted by a political subdivision to the electors for the increase of the ad valorem tax rate limitation imposed by Section 6 of Article IX for a period of more than five years, or for the issue of bonds, only electors in, and who have property assessed for any ad valorem taxes in, any part of the district or territory to be affected by the result of such election or electors who are the lawful husbands or wives of such persons shall be entitled to vote thereon. All electors in the district or territory affected may vote on all other questions.

Sec. 7.

A board of state canvassers of four members shall be established by law. No candidate for an office to be canvassed nor any inspector of elections shall be eligible to serve as a member of a board of canvassers. A majority of any board of canvassers shall not be composed of members of the same political party.

There is hereby established an autonomous and nonpartisan agency within the executive branch of state government called the Michigan office of elections which shall be directed by the director of elections. The director of elections and employees of the Michigan office of elections shall be members of the state classified civil service and subject to the employment rules and regulations of the Michigan civil service commission. The director of elections shall be the state officer with supervisory authority over state and local election officials and federal, state and local elections, and shall have responsibility for administering, implementing, interpreting and administrative enforcement of the election laws of this state, including all laws related to the financing of election campaigns for or against candidates and ballot questions, election recounts, the recall of elected public officials, and lobbying laws. The director of elections shall serve as the permanent secretary of the independent and nonpartisan commission on legislative districting described in Article IV, Sections 4, 5 and 6 of this Constitution with the powers and duties described therein. Vacancies in the office of director of elections shall be filled by the Michigan Civil Service Commission, which shall have the exclusive authority to select and employ the director of elections based upon the employment criteria specified in Article XI, Section 5 of this Constitution. The Governor may initially implement this section by Executive Order. The powers and duties of the Michigan office of elections and the director of elections, however, shall not, after an initial allocation be reallocable pursuant to Article V, Section 2 or by law. To enable the director of elections to exercise his or her powers, the legislature shall appropriate, annually, sufficient funds for the establishment, staffing and operation of the Michigan office of elections and director of elections.

Sec. 8.

Laws shall be enacted to provide for the recall of all elective officers except judges of courts of record upon petition of electors equal in number to 25 percent of the number of persons voting in the last preceding election for the office of governor in the electoral district of the officer sought to be recalled. The sufficiency of any statement of reasons or grounds procedurally required shall be a political rather than a judicial question.

Sec. 9.

The people reserve to themselves the power to propose laws and to enact and reject laws, called the initiative, and the power to approve or reject laws enacted by the legislature, called the referendum. The power of initiative extends only to laws which the legislature may enact under this constitution. The power of referendum does not extend to acts making general appropriations for state institutions as defined in Article IV, Section 31 or to meet deficiencies in state funds and must be invoked in the manner prescribed by law within 90 days following the final adjournment of the legislative session at which the law was enacted. To invoke the initiative or referendum, petitions signed by a number of registered electors, not less than eight percent for initiative and five percent for referendum of the total vote cast for all candidates for governor at the last preceding general election at which a governor was elected shall be required.

No law as to which the power of referendum properly has been invoked shall be effective thereafter unless approved by a majority of the electors voting thereon at the next general election.

Any law proposed by initiative petition shall be either enacted or rejected by the legislature without change or amendment within 40 session days from the time such petition is received by the legislature. If any law proposed by such petition shall be enacted by the legislature it shall be subject to referendum, as hereinafter provided.

If the law so proposed is not enacted by the legislature within the 40 days, the state officer authorized by law shall submit such proposed law to the people for approval or rejection at the next general election. The legislature may reject any measure so proposed by initiative petition and propose a different measure upon the same subject by a yea and nay vote upon separate roll calls, and in such event both measures shall be submitted by such state officer to the electors for approval or rejection at the next general election.

Any law submitted to the people by either initiative or referendum petition and approved by a majority of the votes cast thereon at any election shall take effect 10 days after the date of the official declaration of the vote. No law initiated or adopted by the people shall be subject to the veto power of the governor, and no law adopted by the people at the polls under the initiative provisions of this section shall be amended or repealed, except by a vote of the electors unless otherwise provided in the initiative measure or by three-fourths of the members elected to and serving in each house of the legislature. Laws approved by the people under the referendum provision of this section may be amended by the legislature at any subsequent session thereof. If two or more measures approved by the electors at the same election conflict, that receiving the highest affirmative vote shall prevail.

The legislature shall implement the provisions of this section.

Sec. 10.

No person shall be elected to office as representative in the United States House of Representatives more than three times during any twelve year period. No person shall be elected to office as senator in the United States Senate more than two times during any twenty-four year period. Any person appointed or elected to fill a vacancy in the United States House of Representatives or the United States Senate for a period greater than one half of a term of such office, shall be considered to have been elected to serve one time in that office for purposes of this section. This limitation on the number of times a person shall be elected to office shall apply to terms of office beginning on or after January 1, 1993.

The people of Michigan hereby state their support for the aforementioned term limits for members of the United States House of Representatives and United States Senate and instruct their public officials to use their best efforts to attain such a limit nationwide.

The people of Michigan declare that the provisions of this section shall be deemed severable from the remainder of this amendment and that their intention is that federal officials elected from Michigan will continue voluntarily to observe the wishes of the people as stated in this section, in the event any provision of this section is held invalid.

This section shall be self-executing. Legislation may be enacted to facilitate operation of this section, but no law shall limit or restrict the application of this section. If any part of this section is held to be invalid or unconstitutional, the remaining parts of this section shall not be affected but will remain in full force and effect.