On May 15, the Michigan Senate Elections & Government Reform Committee passed SB 329. Here is a description of the bill. IT would say that if a municipal city clerk misinformed candidates for city office about the deadline for them to submit petitions to be on the ballot, then that deadline could be adjusted for that year only.
The bill exists because election officials in Flint this year told candidates that the deadline was a week later than the actual deadline. If the bill doesn’t pass, all candidates for Mayor will be required to be write-in candidates, because no one running for Mayor submitted a valid petition by the deadline. Candidates needed 900 signatures. The election is non-partisan.
The bill is specific to 2015, and likely for Flint only, though it is general.
(a) If before December 31, 2015;
(b) A city clerk published a filing deadline that is in error, and is up to three weeks late;
(c) The city clerk did not correct the error at least two weeks before the actual deadline;
(d) One or more candidates relied on the erroneous date, and filed after the deadline in law;
Under these conditions the SOS, may authorize an adjusted deadline for that year only.
The deadline has changed in the last couple of years (but I think Flint just miscounted), so it is conceivable that there are other cities that made a mistake without getting any publicity.
This should be a local problem and not a state issue anyway. My write-in vote would go to Giggles anyway.