Slow Signature Filings Raise Questions, But Not Necessarily Red Flags, For 2026 Primary Election

(Source: MIRS.news, Published 01/30/2026) As of Jan. 30, only three congressional candidates have submitted signatures to qualify for Michigan's 2026 primary election, a slowdown that one election compliance professional said is not unusual this far out from the filing deadline.  

Meghan Reckling, the CEO and co-founder of Victory Fields Operations, a firm that specializes in petition management and signature verification, said campaigns often delay filing signatures intentionally. Submitting early, she said, gives opponents more time to scrutinize petitions for technical errors or grounds for formal challenges. 

Page of Signatures

Campaigns frequently collect signatures months in advance and hold them until the April filing deadline, Reckling said, since the formal review and challenge process does not begin until after signatures are submitted. “There's no advantage to filing early,” she said, adding that many campaigns prefer to limit the window during which they can be examined. 

Andrew “Rocky” Raczkowski, a Michigan-based political consultant who has worked on both candidate and ballot initiative petitions, also said the lack of early filing does not necessarily indicate that campaigns are behind. He argued that some campaigns also hold signatures so they can continue communicating with people who signed their petitions, using the process to build a supporter database rather than treating it as a one-time transaction.

While the slow pace of candidate filings may reflect strategy rather than difficulty, organizers say ballot initiatives face a different set of challenges, particularly when it comes to scale and cost. 

Unlike candidates, initiative campaigns must gather hundreds of thousands of valid signatures within a 180-day window, a requirement tied to voter turnout in the previous gubernatorial election. That threshold has risen in recent cycles, making all-volunteer efforts nearly impossible to sustain. 

Reckling says the process itself has not necessarily become harder, but it has become more expensive. Most successful initiatives, she said, now rely on paid circulators to meet signature requirements while minimizing errors that could invalidate petitions. 

Lee Albright of National Petitions Management echoed that sentiment, noting that “the longer you wait, the more expensive it becomes.” While the costs can be per signature, hourly or dependent on other factors, he said the price per signature can be around $10 to $12. He also referred to the high costs after the COVID-19 pandemic, some saying it reached as high as $20 per signature. Albright attributed that rise in cost to it being a desperate time with a shortage of workers and many candidates.

A Michigan-based organizer with experience of running both successful and unsuccessful statewide petition efforts said that petitions are inherently difficult, noting that although the 2018 Voters Not Politicians to create an Independent Redistricting Commission may have suggested an easier era for signature gathering, it may have also benefited from a bit of luck. 

The organizer noted that the campaign benefited from a rare convergence of favorable conditions, including lower signature thresholds tied to a low-turnout gubernatorial race, sustained media attention and a unified volunteer base that organized largely through a single social media platform. 

Today's petition drives face a more fragmented media environment, higher signature requirements and fewer moments that break the news cycle in the same way. 

In some cases, the organizer said that initiatives that eventually succeed do so after a major external event focuses public attention on the issue — pointing to the 2022 reproductive rights petition, which gained momentum after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe V. Wade. 

Karla Wagner, who helped organize a volunteer-led property tax petition effort, said large signature thresholds and organized opposition can make volunteer-only campaigns especially difficult. She said signature collection often requires extensive voter education, particularly when opponents actively campaign against an initiative or circulate conflicting information. That dynamic, she said, can slow the process even when public interest appears strong. 

Educating circulators, too, is another challenge, Wagner noted, since volunteers must be prepared to answer detailed questions from voters before they are willing to sign. 

Raczkowski noted that signature gathering is often slowed by practical factors that have little to do with voter willingness, including weather, event timing and technical rules around duplicate signatures. 

Taken together, organizers and compliance professionals say the mechanics of Michigan's petition process have not fundamentally changed, but the conditions surrounding it have.

For candidates, delayed filing often reflects a calculated strategy rather than trouble collecting signatures. For initiatives, rising thresholds, higher costs and a crowded political landscape have narrowed the path to qualifying for the ballot. 

As Michigan heads towards the 2026 election cycle, those involved in the process say one thing remains constant: qualifying for the ballot has always been difficult, and the appearance of ease in past cycles may have been more of an exception to a rule.