Michigan Governor Signs Bill, Excusing 2017 Local Candidates in Four Cities Who Filed Late Documents to Run for Office

On September 18, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder signed HB 4892, which makes it possible for candidates in four particular Michigan cities to run for local office this year, even though they missed the filing deadline. Generally these candidates were the victim of misinformation for local election officials.


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Michigan Governor Signs Bill, Excusing 2017 Local Candidates in Four Cities Who Filed Late Documents to Run for Office — 3 Comments

  1. @DR, The cities were fined, and the city clerks are required to undergo training from the SOS.

  2. In 2012, the legislature set the filing date to 15 weeks (105 days) prior to an election. This was intended to help prepare ballots to be sent overseas 45 days before an election. The 60 days in between would apparently provide time for withdrawal, challenges, litigation, appeals of litigation, quarrying of the stone for the ballots, and chiseling the ballots (invariably, some of the ballots break and must be redone).

    In some of the cities, the city clerk apparently believed that the city charter took precedence over the state law, or were unaware of the change in the filing deadline from 12 weeks to 15 weeks in 2012. In Lake Angelus, a small burg in Oakland County, the city clerk gave the withdrawal deadline, rather than the filing deadline. All three candidates missed the deadline. One of them was the mayor, who is also the husband of the city clerk who gave him the wrong date.

    In Michigan, election clerks are required to provide petition blanks to candidates. Candidates may provide their own, so long as they are “substantially” the same. Most candidates would probably just get them from the city clerk to be sure, at which time they would probably receive instructions. In one of the cities, a news article from last April noted the candidates who had taken out petitions, and said whether they ran would depend on whether they returned the petition.

    In some cities, no candidates qualified; in another city, two candidates who are not running because they accepted other appointed positions are on the ballot, but candidates who want to be elected are not.

    You might recall that a similar situation occurred in Flint in 2015. The section that was amended in 2015, and been re-amended in 2017. In Flint, there was a write-in campaign for Giggles the Pig, before the legislature permitted the belated candidates to be on the ballot.

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