Michigan panel recommends abortion rights proposal for ballot

[Eugene]

Source: Associated Press

Michigan panel recommends abortion proposal for ballot

By JOEY CAPPELLETTI
August 25, 2022

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Michigan’s Bureau of Elections recommended Thursday that the state’s election board give final approval to a potential ballot initiative seeking to enshrine abortion rights into the state’s constitution.

The Bureau of Elections said in a staff report that after examining petition sheets and a random sample of signatures, state officials determined that the petition contains 596,379 valid signatures –- close to 150,000 more than was required.

The report came after the Reproductive Freedom for All campaign turned in 753,759 signatures last month, a record-breaking number of signatures for a ballot initiative in the state. The Reproductive Freedom for All ballot initiative would affirm into Michigan’s Constitution the right to make pregnancy-related decisions without interference.

The Bureau of Election’s report also addressed an anti-abortion group’s challenge to the proposed amendment last week, which claimed that lack of spacing in the amendment’s text created “strings of gibberish” and made the amendment “impossible to understand.”

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Read more: https://apnews.com/article/abortion-2022-midterm-elections-michigan-cac67e54d177d116c09146826ad7c68b