Residents Collecting Signatures to Vote on Ann Arbor Charter Amendment To Enact Non-Partisan Elections

Note: This article has been updated with comments from Ann Arbor City Clerk Jacqueline Beaudry, and corrected.

by P.D. Lesko

Mayor Chris Taylor has twice vetoed City Council resolutions passed that would have changed the City’s Charter to allow for non-partisan elections. He last did so in Aug. 2020. Former City Council member Jane Lumm had introduced the proposal which passed in a vote of 7-4. After Taylor’s veto, Lumm called him arrogant. Taylor, in defense of his veto claimed, “The partisan label has incredibly important information with respect to a candidate’s political philosophy and has direct relevance to local government.” On May 6, 2024, a group of Ann Arbor residents announced that they were collecting signatures to place the question of whether Ann Arbor should have non-partisan elections on the Nov. 2024 ballot. In Michigan, only two of the state’s 257 municipalities currently have partisan elections.

By mid-June signatures of 5 percent of registered Ann Arbor voters are required to place the
nonpartisan election petition on the November 2024 ballot. City Clerk Jacqueline Beaudry places the number of verified signatures required at upwards of 5,692. Beaudry said in an email, “There are currently 113,838 registered voters, including those that are considered “inactive.'” The total number of registered voters is inflated. The City Clerk said cleaning up the rolls in an ongoing process:

“[L]ist maintenance is an ongoing effort. Most recently, citywide mailing of voter identification cards was sent to all city residents following the 2020 Census and subsequent redistricting. Besides the ten-year citywide redistricting that takes place, we also communicate with voters regarding polling place changes, absentee ballots, and early voting opportunities to name a few reasons. Any returned mail from these sources is utilized for list maintenance which includes a cancelation countdown, following the process under the National Voter Registration Act.”

Beaudry added: “We do suggest a buffer – one, to ensure the number of signatures is sufficient for the registered list on the day of filing, and two, to help offset some disqualifications. …[T]he 5 percent number will range from 5,500 – 6,000 signatures” needed to place the ballot question before the voters in Nov. 2024.

Inaccurate voter rolls compound the difficulty of collecting the required number of signatures to put a ballot question before voters. In addition, former Gov. Rick Snyder and his Republican-led legislature also passed legislation in 2018 which makes it more difficult to initiate ballot proposals. The time allowed for the collection of signatures was dropped from six to three months.

The current Democrat-controlled Michigan legislature has not reversed what the Michigan ACLU calls Snyder’s “anti-voter laws.”

The Coalition for Ann Arbor’s Future, a grassroots initiative, is campaigning for non-partisan elections to “make Ann Arbor’s local elections more open, inclusive and insulated from special interests.”

Those involved in the petition drive include former City Council members Elizabeth Nelson (D-Ward 4), Kathy Griswold (D-Ward 2), and Anne Bannister (D-Ward 1). All three voted in support of Lumm’s 2020 resolution vetoed by Mayor Taylor.

The ballot initiative to allow voters to determine whether elections in the City should be non-partisan is called “Democracy for Everyone.”

Not only would elections be non-partisan, the low-turnout August primary election for City Council would be replaced with non-partisan elections on the November ballot, “when turnout is highest.” Ann Arbor is

According to County Clerk records, in some August primary elections, fewer than 10 percent of eligible voters turn out. In some recent contested Council races, City Council members spent upwards of $40,000 on campaigns that resulted in the winner receiving fewer than 800 votes in the August primary election.

According to John Godfrey, a former Asst. Dean at the University of Michigan and a spokesman for the Coalition for Ann Arbor’s Future, low-voter primaries and unopposed November races weaken the accountability of candidates to voters.”

The same group is circulating petitions to put a second ballot question to voters in Nov. 2024.

Voters Not Money, the second proposal, would create public campaign financing with a Fair Election Fund. Candidates for city office who choose to participate would receive a 9-to-1 match on small donations of up to $50. Participating candidates would agree to lower contribution limits and refuse donations from corporations, PACs and other organizations. This reform would counter the outsize influence of wealthy donors and special interests in recent elections where winning candidates spent more than twice as much as successful candidates less than a decade ago.

John Godfrey said, “Similar public financing measures have been adopted in cities like Seattle, Denver, Portland and Evanston to level the playing field and empower more citizens to run for office based on grassroots community support rather than access to big money.” The grassroots movement, according to spokesman Godfrey, has the support of “hundreds of Ann Arbor residents.”

The members of are calling on residents to volunteer and help gather signatures to advance these initiatives that will strengthen local democracy for Ann Arbor’s future.