Supreme Court Rejects Emergency Petition to Place Citizen Voting Measure on November Ballot

The U.S. Supreme Court declined to grant an emergency request from a group seeking to put a proof-of-citizenship measure on Michigan’s November ballot.

Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh rejected the request from Americans for Citizen Voting. The group has been pushing for a state vote on a constitutional amendment requiring state officials to confirm that voters in the state are U.S. citizens.

Kavanaugh provided no explanation of the decision.

A few hours later, the Michigan Supreme Court also rejected a bid from the group to place the measure on the November ballot.

The required date for Michigan election officials to finalize the ballot in the state is Sept. 4, leaving the petitioners with little hope of getting judicial approval before the deadline.

Americans for Citizen Voting claimed in its emergency petition that it was making the request because state officials refused to certify that the measure had received enough signatures to move forward.

“The Michigan Board of State Canvassers refused to certify a petition for Michigan’s November 3, 2026 election despite the petition garnering more than 700,000 signatures and needing only 446,198,” the group wrote.

The group has concentrated its effort against instances of noncitizens voting in municipal and school board elections. These elections, with the agreement of local legislators, allow voting by some noncitizens—often requiring a green card or lawful residency.

Outside of these exceptional elections, outcome-altering voting by noncitizens is practically nonexistent in the United States, according to the American Immigration Council.

According to the council, the conservative Heritage Foundation’s data set of confirmed and convicted instances of voter fraud by noncitizens constitutes less than one ten-thousandth of a percent of total voters in the United States since 2000.

The state of Michigan has noted in a general information page that, as in each of the other 49 states and under federal law, it is illegal for noncitizens to vote in either state-level or federal-level elections.

“There is no evidence to support claims that large numbers of noncitizens have voted in past elections or are currently registering to vote,” the Michigan Department of State website said. “In fact, the name of everyone who registers or votes in an election is a public record—it would be very easy to see if noncitizens were registering or voting in large numbers.”

President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that noncitizens are regularly voting in the United States in large quantities, characterizing Congress’s failure to pass the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act—which would require a birth certificate or passport for most American citizens to register to vote—as a threat to the country.

In Michigan, Joe Biden defeated Trump in the 2020 election by more than 154,000 votes. According to a Census Bureau analysis, 600 noncitizens voted in the state.