Right to Life of Michigan projects it will hit legal requirement, but fall short of 400,000 target unless more petitions are collected

LANSING — Right to Life of Michigan and its pro-life allies have only three weeks left to collect signatures for the Michigan Values Life late-term dismemberment abortion ban.

In a Nov. 21 news release, the nonprofit said it is projecting it will have 363,000 signatures by the Friday, Dec. 13 deadline, which is more than the 340,047 required by Michigan law, but well short of its original goal of 400,000.

“We’ll exceed the legal requirement, but we can’t guarantee every signature is valid — even after checking,” said Barbara Listing, Right to Life of Michigan president. “We need to collect 37,000 additional signatures in the final three weeks. We must have an adequate cushion above the requirement to feel confident about ending the drive successfully. We don’t want to find out we’ve been disqualified after we’ve crossed the finish line.”

If implemented, the citizen-led initiative would ban the “dilation and evacuation” abortion procedure in Michigan, which involves dismembering an unborn child in the womb. The proposed legislation would classify these types of abortions as partial-birth abortions, which are already banned in Michigan.

According to Listing, more than 7,800 volunteers have circulated petitions since the drive began in June.

“We applaud their hard work, but we need a strong final push,” Listing said. “If every circulator collect(s) five more signatures, we can close the gap in our cushion. Hundreds of thousands of pro-life people have signed the petition but haven’t circulated one yet. If just a few of them join our affiliates’ efforts around the state, we only need 150 additional signatures a week from each county until the end. We’re confident that our all-volunteer force will rise to this challenge.”

Those who have not signed the petition or wish to circulate a petition may order one at michiganvalueslife.org.

Chris Gast, spokesman for Right to Life of Michigan, said even though the organization expects to make the legal requirement, it is encouraging petition circulators to submit their petitions as soon as possible to speed up the counting and verification process.

“We continue to receive petitions that are dated in July,” Gast told Detroit Catholic. “It’s in human nature that if you have seven signatures, you want to get to eight. But we’re emphasizing now, in this situation, with so many days to count so many signatures, we need to make sure all is collected so we can count them. We don’t want to count 50,000 signatures in the last two or three days.”

The Michigan Constitution allows for a citizen-initiated petition to go straight Michigan Legislature for approval, circumventing Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who has been vocal in opposition of the petition.

Gast said in addition to submitting petitions in a timely manner, circulators must must make sure signatures are properly documented with the correct voting information.

“'Ditto' marks are the biggest thing we see, or people just leaving a line blank,” Gast said. “Another is they put their birthday instead of the day they signed. Also, people not checking ‘City’ or ‘Township,’ or they check both. You need to have your proper jurisdiction. Normally, our circulators do a good job.”

Gast said a combination of factors has contributed to the petition taking longer than usual to collect the required number of signatures. However, he said, Right to Life of Michigan is focused on hitting the 340,047 mark.

“I would say this is the latest we’ve ever gone in collecting signatures,” Gast said. “So, we just have to persevere like never before.”