On September 2, Michigan filed this response in the U.S. Supreme Court in Americans for Citizen Voting v Michigan Board of State Canvassers, 26A275. The issue is whether an initiative petition has enough valid signatures. The state has used a random sample procedure, and if only three more signatures had been validated, the initiative would have had enough. Sponsors of the initiative had submitted affidavits from voters whose signatures had been rejected, saying that is their real signature. But the state rejected that evidence for various procedural reasons.

The appeal had been filed on August 31, and Justice Brett Kavanaugh had then asked the state to respond by September 2, which it has now done.