Government
Future of ballot initiatives uncertain
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By KAREN HOPPER USHER
Capital News Service
LANSING — For the first time since 1968, Michigan voters won’t face a statewide ballot question when they cast their votes in the presidential election. In 2012, voters turned down all six ballot questions they saw. Only 1968 with eight and 1980 with seven had more. “The ridiculous thing to me,” said Dana Nessel, president of Fair Michigan, which tried to get sexual orientation and gender protections into the state constitution, “I kept hearing that there were going to be too many ballot initiatives” in 2016. Experts told her voters wouldn’t know what to do with so many ballot questions, so they would just vote “no” on all of them, she said.