Michigan Supreme Court orders abortion rights initiative to appear on November ballot
By Veronica Stracqualursi, CNN
The Michigan Supreme Court ordered Thursday that a citizen-initiative ballot measure seeking to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution be added to the November ballot.
The court’s 5-2 ruling was issued the day before Michigan’s ballot needs to be finalized on Friday.
The order directs the Board of State Canvassers to certify the Reproductive Freedom for All petition as sufficient and eligible for placement on the ballot.
The board last week had deadlocked on a 2-2 party-line vote on whether to certify the ballot initiative to the November ballot, leading Reproductive Freedom for All to ask the Supreme Court to intervene.
In its staff report to the board, the Bureau of Elections estimated the petition had 596,379 valid signatures — about 146,000 more than the minimum required for certification.
Opponents, however, have challenged the proposed amendment over the petition’s lack of spacing between words.
“Assuming that the challengers’ objection to the spacing represents a challenge to the ‘form’ of the petition that the Board properly considered, the petition has fulfilled all statutory form requirements, and the Board thus has a clear legal duty to certify the petition,” the court wrote.
The board is scheduled to hold an in-person meeting at 10 a.m. Friday, according to a news release from the Michigan state of secretary’s office.
The measure will appear on the ballot as Proposal 3, which would establish an “individual right to reproductive freedom, including right to make and carry out all decisions about pregnancy.”
Backers of the amendment say it will block Michigan’s 1931 abortion law, which bans all abortions except to save the mother’s life.
Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, on Thursday said the ruling underscores “that the role of the Board of State Canvassers under law is to affirm the will of the voters.”
“I am grateful to the court for affirming this and hope the board now resumes its longstanding practice of working within its authority under Michigan law,” she wrote on Twitter.
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
CNN’s Omar Jimenez and Ethan Cohen contributed to this report.
