Ballot initiatives petitioned by the Ypsilanti Ballot Initiative Group, or YpsiBIG, will not be on the ballot in the upcoming November election.
The group collected and submitted enough signatures on both the Non-Partisan Election and the Police Budget Oversight charter amendment petitions on time; The Ypsilanti city clerk missed the deadline to submit the signatures to the county.
There were miscommunications between the city and county about deadlines, Ypsilanti city clerk, Tracy Boudreau said.
“There’s like a thousand different rules, they're all in different places, and nobody seems to understand what’s going on fully,” YpsiBIG member, Brian Geiringer said in a YpsiBIG town hall meeting on September 15.
Boudreau was under the impression that the deadline for submitting the petitions was August 15, while the county told her it was August 13, according to Boudreau.
Boudreau was also told that the county could not accept the petitions without a certified resolution from the city council, she said.
“That was part of the discrepancy,” Boudreau said. “I believed I could certify them, that’s what I do as a clerk, I certify documents.”
Boudreau’s job was to go through and certify over 1,000 of the signatures received on both petitions.
Signatures can be invalidated due to city border limits, handwriting issues, or other technicalities, according to Boudreau.
Boudreau said the city is diligent when verifying signatures, and will search not only the person’s name, but their address as well to ensure that they are a registered voter in the city of Ypsilanti.
“It takes a lot of time to check those signatures,” Boudreau said. “We had additional help to check them,”
Despite Boudreau completing the signature verification within 15 days, the county told her that she missed the deadline of August 13.
“Election law can be confusing,” Boudreau said.
There was a prior disagreement between the city and county relating to the deadlines that Boudreau thought had been resolved, she said.
In response to questions and statements made about the group suing the city over the deadline mix-up, Geiringer said that YpsiBIG does not receive any money for their work, therefore they cannot hire a lawyer.
“If we wanted to have a legal recourse against them not sending the ballot initiatives on time, we would’ve had to submit our first petition on July 1st,” Geiringer said.
YpsiBIG was not ready to submit them by that deadline and the deadlines the group discussed with the city, July 9 and 19th, were later.
The initiatives will be submitted for a future election, Boudreau said.
It’s a matter of determining when the next regular election will be, Boudreau said.
“The only problem with it being in May of 2025 is that would make a special election that has to be called,” Boudreau said. “All of the costs to the taxpayers just for one question on the ballot.”
There is a lack of clarity on when the initiatives will be on the next ballot, Geiringer said.
“I personally believe that they will be on the November 2026 ballot, but who knows,” Geiringer said.
If both initiatives had been passed after the November election, there wouldn’t have been an upcoming August primary election, and the police would not be able to increase their budget without a vote, Geiringer said.
“I think city council members should have more pressure on them to say something about our initiatives,” Geiringer said.
Besides Desiraé Simmons and Me'Chelle King, other members of the city council have not publicly addressed the ballot initiatives, according to Geiringer.
“When you think about it, it’s pretty ridiculous,” Geiringer said. “These are massively popular initiatives and we’re going around getting 75% of people to sign them and intimately ask questions about them.”
YpsiBIG asked city council members via email, message and survey about their feelings regarding the initiatives and received no response, according to Geiringer.
“If they want to disagree with them, they should say that, and give reasons why,” Geiringer said.
Over the next two years, there is a possibility that YpsiBIG will be petitioning for more ballot initiatives to join the others on the November 2026 ballot, according to Geiringer.
“The next step we’re thinking about is how to connect our efforts more so that we can really flex our full strength across the city,” YpsiBIG member, Ravyn Kalfayan said.
