Petitioning builds community

The petition to bring ranked choice voting to Michigan elections began circulating last week. Director Pat Zabawa reportedly logged his own signature as the campaign's first last Thursday.

“One down, 446,197 to go,” said Zabawa. “Obviously, we have our work cut out for us: when we qualify for the ballot, it will have taken the biggest signature collection campaign in Michigan history. That might intimidate some campaigns, but it’s what this team is built for. We have thousands of volunteers who are very eager to win this with shoe leather and hard work. We’re now in the stage of the campaign where progress is measured in how much ink we put on paper and how many conversations we have with our friends and neighbors.”

Conversations with our friends and neighbors indeed. Circulating petitions, and engaging with circulators when we encounter them in public, provide simple and direct opportunities to establish and reestablish community connections.

Whether or not we agree or disagree with the spirit of a petition, the very activity itself seeks to bring people together to address some of the most pressing and relevant issues of the day.

Ranked choice voting means listing candidates in order of preference. The campaign to bring it to Michigan seeks to amend the state constitution to “require ranked-choice voting (RCV) for federal offices, Governor/Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General and Secretary of State, allowing voters to numerically rank candidates by voter preference starting in 2029.”

The amendment would allow voters to choose at least five candidates: “4 more candidates than positions to be nominated/elected.” If no candidate receives more than 50% of the votes in a first round of counting, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated.

Then, in the next round, those who selected the eliminated candidate as their first choice give their votes over to their second choices. The process continues until a candidate has majority support.

The Ax MI Tax campaign, like Rank MI Vote, seeks to change our state constitution. Other types of legally binding petitions in Michigan include statewide initiatives to rescind or enact new laws, like the recently successful campaigns to decriminalize marijuana; petitions to amend existing laws, like Roscommon County's recent efforts to adjust the level of Houghton Lake; and to qualify candidates for office.

They all present opportunities to connect and reconnect with family, friends and neighbors to discuss and deliberate on issues that are going to impact us all directly, from local to regional to statewide concerns.

So those who have an idea for a petition, see a campaign of interest or observe a petition circulator out in public should consider taking the next steps.

The more ways we can connect, the better—we are only as strong as our weakest links.