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Citizenship Verification and Voter Identification Amendment

Did not qualify

Michigan · November 2026 general election · Constitutional amendment · Election day November 3, 2026
Topics: Elections and voting, Civil rights

In plain language

This proposed constitutional amendment would have required new voters to prove U.S. citizenship when registering, and required existing voters to prove citizenship if the state could not independently verify it, creating two categories of voter rolls as several other states already do. It would have removed the option to sign an affidavit in place of photo ID and created a state-funded program to help voters obtain qualifying identification. Sponsors submitted more than 700,000 signatures, well over the 446,198 required, but the Board of State Canvassers deadlocked 2-2 on August 24, 2026 on whether enough were valid, leaving the amendment off the November ballot pending an appeal to the Michigan Supreme Court.

Fiscal impact

No official fiscal note has been issued for this measure yet.

When the state publishes a fiscal analysis, it will appear here and be listed in the sources below.

What supporters and opponents say

These are summaries of arguments made by the named organizations, drawn from the sources listed below. They are their claims, not this site's, and this site takes no position on the measure.

What supporters say

  • Americans for Citizen Voting, an effort of the Virginia-based Liberty Initiative Fund, says the amendment would strengthen confidence in Michigan elections; Liberty Initiative Fund president Paul Jacob called the board's deadlock a "travesty" based on partisan politics rather than the will of Michigan voters and said the group would appeal to the Michigan Supreme Court and, if needed, the U.S. Supreme Court.
  • Former Michigan Secretary of State and state Sen. Ruth Johnson (R), a supporter, pointed to the volume of signatures gathered as evidence of the amendment's popularity.

Attributed to Americans for Citizen Voting, Liberty Initiative Fund.

What opponents say

  • Promote the Vote Action, a voting-rights group that challenged signatures in the sample review, says Michigan voters have repeatedly supported modernizing elections and removing barriers to the ballot box rather than adding new ones; spokesperson Micheal Davis Jr. made that argument during the certification proceedings.
  • Democratic Board of State Canvassers member Mary Ellen Gurewitz called the petition drive "sloppy" and said it put the board in a difficult position when reviewing which signatures were valid.

Attributed to Promote the Vote Action.

Official ballot language

The certified ballot text is not yet available for this measure. Once the state certifies it, the verbatim wording will appear here.

Sources

Everything on this page traces to these sources. Follow them to read the original documents.

Last updated . How this page is sourced and corrected is described in the correction policy.