Michigan ballots loaded with tax requests in primary GOP voters may skip

The Breen Township ballot is stuffed. 

When voters in Michigan’s tiny Upper Peninsula town of less than 500 residents cast ballots in the March 10 presidential primary, they’ll also help decide the fate of nine separate tax proposals asking them to approve or renew local and county millages.

The township near Iron Mountain may have the longest ballot in the state, but it is not alone.

Michigan voters will decide at least 245 local ballot proposals in March, an unusually high number for a primary election, which are usually low-turnout affairs. At least 220 of the proposals ask voters to raise taxes or continue assessments for services such as road repairs, public safety and school building maintenance. 

Local officials cite several reasons for putting questions on the March ballot, but election experts say the large number points to a common political calculation: Tax increases have a better chance of passing in low-turnout elections, especially this year if Republican turnout is depressed because President Donald Trump doesn’t face significant primary opposition. 

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​“It doesn’t get better than that for the opportunity to pass it,” said Steve Mitchell, a pollster and GOP political consultant with Mitchell Research & Communications in East Lansing. 

Democrats are “far more likely” to support millages, he said. “So to have it on a presidential primary ballot where you’re going to see a disproportionately high turnout of Democrats, that is the best thing someone looking for a millage increase would want. That’s the perfect electorate.”

Critics contend the rush to the March ballot is antidemocratic, an extreme example of a time-honored tradition by local government and school officials to avoid opposition voters by posing tax questions in low-turnout elections. 

“Just because it’s a smart strategy doesn’t mean I think it’s appropriate,” said state Rep. Jim Lower, R-Greenville, who previously served in local government and once worked for a consulting firm that conducted polling for groups that wanted to pass local taxes.

Lower was among a trio of GOP legislators who proposed a 2017 bill that would have limited most tax requests to November general election ballots. The measure did not advance and was criticized as an attack on local control, but Lower maintains that deciding local tax hikes in higher turnout elections would be “a more fair way to do it.”

Primary turnout — even in presidential years — is typically a fraction of general elections. A total of 2.5 million Michigan voters cast ballots in contested Democratic and Republican primaries in 2016, barely half of the 4.9 million voters in the November election that year.

Election officials anticipate turnout could increase this year because of a new law allowing Michigan voters to request absentee ballots without an excuse. 

As of Feb. 13, absentee applications were up 60 percent compared to the same point in 2016, according to Michigan Secretary of State spokesman Mike Doyle.

In Breen Township, where 163 out of 362 registered voters cast ballots in the presidential primary four years ago, local officials are asking voters to approve a road maintenance millage, a new parks millage and to renew an ambulance and rescue services millage. 

Voters there will also decide Dickinson County proposals for an enhanced 911 millage renewal, a new road maintenance millage, health renewal and expansion millages, a new conservation district millage and a tri-township ambulance millage. 

“On roads, you’re from Michigan, so I’m sure you understand,” said Breen Township Supervisor Mickey Beauchamp.

“We’ve never had a problem with passing our millages before, but we’ve got a different atmosphere right now — I guess it’s nationwide — where everything is split between Republicans and Democrats,” he said. 

Nearly half of all Michigan residents could be impacted by tax measures on the March ballot, including a Detroit Institute of Arts millage renewal in Wayne, Oakland and Macomb Counties; zoo, parks and health millages in Ingham County; and parks, event center and Michigan State University extension taxes in Saginaw County. 

As Bridge Magazine reported, the DIA millage does not expire for another two years, prompting complaints the museum was trying to avoid anti-tax voters. Museum officials have defended the timing, saying costs of sending campaign literature to likely voters would be too high during a heavy-turnout general elections this November or in 2022.

That’s an argument echoed by school officials asking voters to approve bonds and other taxes. 

“For some districts, it’s easier to get information out in March than it is in August or November, especially in a presidential election year, because the local elections get lost in the noise,” said Jennifer Smith, director of government relations for the Michigan Association of School Boards. 

Of the 220 tax-related proposals going before voters in March, 69 would benefit local or intermediate school districts. Another 32 would help local agencies maintain roads and bridges.

Smith said school districts are asking for taxes now to take advantage of historically low interest rates for building projects and avoid potential increases by the fall.

“Our school districts are looking for involvement, not to hide things,” she said. 

Zach Gorchow, executive editor and publisher of the Gongwer subscription news service in Lansing, has spent years tracking local ballot questions across Michigan. He said he is not surprised by the volume of March proposals. Officials often pack ballots in statewide elections “because the locals don’t have to pick up the cost” of running them, he said. 

An active Democratic presidential primary in the battleground state could “skew the electorate” toward approving millages, Gorchow said. He recalled that 2012, when there was only a contested presidential primary on the Republican side, “was definitely one of the worst cycles for millage votes, because the electorate skewed very conservative.”

Like much of rural and northern Michigan, Breen Township and Dickinson County have turned increasingly Republican in recent election cycles. But local officials aren’t sure what to expect in the upcoming presidential primary, where voters will decide several tax questions.

Primary turnout barely topped 32 percent four years ago in Dickinson County, where 6,903 voters cast ballots in the Democratic and Republican contests. That was less than half of the 13,359 voters in the general election, which Trump won with 65 percent of the vote. 

While Republicans may not be as motivated to vote in the presidential primary this spring because Trump faces only token opposition, Dickinson County Clerk Dolly Cook said she expects some GOP voters will “cross over” to vote for the “weak guy or the weak woman or whatever” in the Democratic primary to help select a nominee they think Trump will beat. 

“I can see that happening now with some of these absentee requests,” she said. 

Michigan’s “closed” primary election process does not require party registration. Voters can choose to participate in either the Democratic or Republican primary. There’s also a third, non-partisan option for voters who only want to weigh in on local ballot proposals. 

“Political people like myself are going to think very long and hard about whether or not they want to cast a vote for symbolism or whether or not they want to cast a vote for a crazy person that has no chance,” said state Rep. Beau LaFave, an Iron Mountain Republican who represents Dickinson County. 

LaFave supports Trump but is “certainly thinking about” crossing over to wreak havoc in the Democratic primary. 

“I know it’s a secret ballot, but I just kind of would feel [bad] if I actually voted for Bernie Sanders, even if it was just strategic,” he said. 

Sanders won Michigan’s Democratic presidential primary four years ago, narrowly topping Hillary Clinton in Dickinson County and statewide. The Vermont U.S. senator is one of eight active candidates that will appear on the Democratic primary ballot in March, along with the names of seven others who already have dropped out of the race. 

Despite the potential for crossover voting, tax proposals face ideal conditions in the March primary, said Mitchell, who advised various local entities on ballot proposal strategy. 

While Republicans voters in recent Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary turned out in larger than expected numbers, “there are still far more Democrats voting,” he said. 

Local government officials have other reasons to put tax proposals on the March ballot. 

If voters reject a proposal in the spring, officials can ask them again in the fall, said Cook, the Dickinson County clerk. She noted that holding a countywide question for 2021 is a non-starter for many local governments because they’d have to pay for an off-year election themselves.

“It would be too costly to do that, so we put them on ahead of time” in elections paid for by the state, Cook said. 

Dickinson Conservation District organizers have already taken their request to voters several times, most recently in the 2018 general election, when their proposal failed by just 226 votes, roughly 2 percentage points. They’ll try again in March. 

The countywide ballot measure would create a levy of 10 cents per $1,000 of taxable property value over five years, generating an estimated $89,000 annually for local conservation programs, including water quality studies and forestry support.  

“It’s a totally nonpartisan issue, so I hope it sells well to everybody,” said Bill Rice, who chairs the board of the nonprofit conservation district that was created by state law but rarely funded. “We looked at the calendar in 2020 and we just thought that the presidential primary in March might be the best shot.” 

Low GOP turnout might aid the effort, but Rice is hoping for broad support. 

We should be out voting no matter what, whether it’s a slow year or a really usual year like this one.”

“We should be out voting no matter what, whether it’s a slow year or a really usual year like this one,” he said. “My first message is to try to encourage them.”

While local and county officials rushed to put proposals on the March ballot, they now fear the avalanche could snow them under. 

Breen Township voters who might otherwise support one or more tax-related measure may feel overwhelmed by the nine they find on their ballot, said Beauchamp, the supervisor.

“That’s going to be a factor,” he said “I don’t think it’s good to have that many on there, because once they start saying ‘no’ they just start going down the list.”