Michigan officials are urging the U.S. Supreme Court to reject an emergency bid by a citizen voting group to place a proof-of-citizenship requirement on the November ballot, a move that could permanently block hundreds of thousands of petition signers from ever having their say.

Michigan Solicitor General Ann Sherman filed a response with the high court this week arguing that Americans for Citizen Voting Michigan's emergency petition is "sorely lacking in factual bases and legal substance." The group wants the justices to intervene before the state's ballot finalization deadline, now just days away. Sherman's filing urged the court to stay out of what she called a state administrative matter better suited for state court review.

The proposed constitutional amendment would require Michigan voters to provide proof of U.S. citizenship. The group behind it, Americans for Citizen Voting Michigan, collected more than 700,000 signatures, far exceeding the 446,198 required under state law. But the Michigan Bureau of Elections rejected the petition after a 1,000-signature sample fell just three valid signatures short of the threshold needed to certify the full batch. The Washington Examiner reported that ACVM then submitted sworn affidavits from nine Michigan voters confirming they had signed the petition, affidavits the Bureau itself had directed the group to obtain. The Bureau rejected those too, citing a mismatch with its own internal database.

700,000 signatures, and a state board killed it on a party-line vote

The petition never made it past the Michigan Board of State Canvassers, which deadlocked 2-2 along party lines. Both Democratic members voted against certification. Both Republicans voted for it. A tie meant the initiative died.

That sequence, more than 700,000 signatures submitted, a five-month wait, then a rejection over three signatures in a statistical sample, is what drove ACVM to the courts. The group first asked the Michigan Supreme Court for emergency relief. The state court did not act. ACVM then filed an emergency application with the U.S. Supreme Court, docketed as case 26A275, asking the justices to rule before the September 4 ballot finalization deadline.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh responded by ordering Michigan officials to file their response by noon Wednesday. Sherman met that deadline with a brief dismissing the petition as procedurally improper and factually thin.

In her filing, Sherman argued the justices should not insert themselves into a state administrative dispute. She wrote:

"The Court should decline to put its thumb on the scale in this manner, particularly in the case of a state administrative proceeding where a state court can provide more fulsome and comprehensive review."

Sherman also characterized ACVM's petition as "highly unusual," noting the group wants the Supreme Court to "be the first court to review their claims" and that the application "provides limited and sparse citation to any law."

ACVM says the state demanded proof, got it, then threw it out

ACVM's emergency filing tells a different story. The group argues the Bureau of Elections told them to collect sworn affidavits from voters whose signatures had been challenged, then refused to accept those affidavits because the names did not match a state database that no outside party is allowed to review.

ACVM's petition put it bluntly:

"It cannot be the case that government officials demand proof of someone's identity, receive it, and then refuse to recognize that proof because those officials have a secret historical database that no one else is allowed to review or because those same officials were delinquent in their processes and arbitrary in their rules."

The group also argued the rejection disenfranchised not just the nine voters who submitted affidavits but the hundreds of thousands of Michigan residents who signed the petition in the first place. Their filing stated that if the state's decision stands, "Michigan voters will never have a chance to vote on the petition, regardless of whether it should or should not have been placed on the ballot."

Republican gubernatorial nominee John James framed the dispute as a product of partisan interference. He pointed directly at Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, saying her office "is trying to keep this question off the ballot, with her staff rejecting signatures even from voters who later submitted notarized affidavits swearing they signed the Citizen Only Voting Petition." The pattern fits a broader trend of Democratic officials using procedural mechanisms to shape election outcomes before voters ever reach the ballot box.

Board of Canvassers waited five months, then ran out the clock

One of the sharpest details in the dispute is the timeline. ACVM submitted more than 700,000 signatures. The Board of State Canvassers waited more than five months before rejecting the petition. That delay left almost no time for the group to seek judicial relief before the September 4 ballot deadline, a deadline that now sits just days away.

Anthony Forlini, a Republican candidate for Michigan secretary of state, accused the board of playing politics. "The four-member board is playing party politics," Forlini said. "It gives a feel that the bureau is advocating for policies that will best fit their election agendas."

The accusation carries weight when set against the numbers. More than 700,000 people signed the petition. The required threshold was 446,198. A random sample of 1,000 signatures turned up 626 valid ones, three short of the 629 needed. On the strength of those three missing signatures in a sample, the state rejected the entire petition. When ACVM tried to fix the problem with sworn, notarized affidavits, the very remedy the Bureau had suggested, the state rejected those too.

Michigan's approach stands in contrast to the straightforward question ACVM wanted voters to decide: whether proof of citizenship should be required to vote. Polling consistently shows broad public support for such measures. But Michigan voters will not get to weigh in unless the Supreme Court intervenes, and the clock is nearly out.

The case arrives at the high court during a stretch of consequential election-related rulings. The justices recently lifted a block on a Trump executive order related to mail-in ballots and allowed construction of a White House ballroom to proceed. Democrats have struggled to accept unfavorable Supreme Court decisions in recent months, with officials in multiple states and cities openly defying or resisting rulings they disagree with.

That resistance has become a pattern. California's governor vowed to keep ignoring the court on transgender sports policy, and New York's mayor has pledged to defy rulings on deportation protections. Michigan's maneuvering is less dramatic but arguably more effective: rather than defy a ruling, state officials used procedural delays and a party-line board vote to prevent the question from reaching voters at all.

A "secret database" and a vanishing remedy

ACVM's most pointed allegation concerns the state's internal records. The group claims the Bureau of Elections maintains a signature-verification database that no outside party can access or review. When voters submitted sworn affidavits confirming they had signed the petition, the Bureau rejected those affidavits because the information did not match its own records, records the petitioners had no ability to check or challenge.

The filing framed this as a due-process problem with constitutional dimensions. ACVM argued that the state "disenfranchised not just the nine affiants but the hundreds of thousands of Michigan voters that also signed ACVM's petition." The group asked the justices to act by Thursday, one day before the ballot finalization deadline.

Sherman's response dismissed that urgency. She argued the court should let state courts handle the matter and that ACVM's legal citations were thin. "These factors plainly weigh in favor denying relief," she wrote. But the timing raises an obvious question: if the state board waited five months to reject the petition, and the state supreme court declined to act, what realistic remedy remains for ACVM other than the one it is now pursuing?

The Supreme Court has shown a willingness to wade into politically charged disputes this term. Whether the justices see a federal question in Michigan's signature-verification process, or view it as a state matter, as Sherman urges, could determine whether Michigan voters ever get to decide for themselves whether proof of citizenship belongs in their constitution.

When more than 700,000 citizens sign a petition and the state finds a way to throw it out over three disputed signatures in a sample, the system is not protecting election integrity. It is obstructing it.