Tomorrow (Thursday, July 17, 2025), RankMIVote will start circulating a citizens initiative petition to amend the Constitution of Michigan to adopt Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) for some offices in certain elections in Michigan. If the petition effort gathers at least 446,198 valid signatures of Michigan registered voters, the question of adoption of RCV will be on the ballot in November 2026.
The legal petitioning period is 180 days, and the 180th day of the petitioning period will be Monday, January 12, 2026. It is the goal of RankMIVote that the petition drive be completed with an entirely volunteer effort. The anti-gerrymandering ballot question that was approved with 61% of the vote in Michigan in November 2018 was placed on the ballot with an all volunteer petitioning effort.
The initiative calls for RCV to be used in Major Party primaries for President, Governor, US Senate, and US House. In General Elections, RCV would be used for those offices, plus Attorney General and Secretary of State. State House and State Senate elections are not included in this initiative.
It also calls for RCV to be used with straight-ticket voting, whereby voters can rank parties, which they carry down the ballot. It would also allow expansion of RCV through local adoption and by acts of the state legislature.
According to the rankmivote.org website, this initiative would also require Michigan government to inform voters of all important updates on how or where to vote, ensure that voters in line at the time of poll closure can vote, allow all voters to use paper ballots in all elections, and move primaries from August to at least June, and possibly earlier in the year.
The RankMiVote organization has been preparing for this petition drive for years. I will be involved in this effort as a volunteer petitioner and have attended several online and in-person meetings in the run up to July 17. This appears to me to be a very well organized effort.
The petition can be seen here.
