← Election Series · Down-ballot coverage · Michigan

Our call — vote NO

The measure

Proposal 1 is on the November 3, 2026 ballot automatically — nobody petitioned for it. Article XII, Section 3 of the Michigan Constitution requires the question to be put to voters every sixteen years as the first proposal on the general-election ballot. The ballot text reads: "A proposal to convene a constitutional convention for the purpose of drafting a general revision of the state constitution. Shall a convention of elected delegates be convened in 2027 to draft a general revision of the state constitution for presentation to the state's voters for their approval or rejection?" Voters approved this question once, in 1961, producing the current 1963 constitution; they rejected it in 1978, 1994, and 2010.

What YES does

A YES vote convenes the convention. Delegates — 148 of them, one from each of Michigan's 110 House districts and 38 Senate districts — would be elected on partisan ballots in special elections in early 2027 and would convene in Lansing on October 5, 2027. The convention's charge is a general revision: the entire constitution is open — courts, taxation, education, elections, local government — with no pre-set agenda and no subject off limits. Anything the convention produces still has to be approved by a majority of delegates and then by Michigan voters in a statewide vote before it takes effect.

What NO does

A NO vote keeps the 1963 constitution in force unchanged and ends the question for this cycle; under the same constitutional provision, it returns automatically in 2042. Amendments remain available the way they have been made for decades — one at a time, by legislative referral or citizen initiative, each judged on its own text.

The math

No official fiscal estimate for the convention's cost has been published in the sources for this article. The organized opposition campaign claims a cost of nearly $80 million; that figure is an advocacy claim, printed here as attributed, not as an official estimate. The 1961–62 convention ran nearly ten months, which is the scale of the undertaking a YES vote authorizes.

OUR CALL

Our call: NO.

The constitution is a restraint on government, and Michigan's current one carries restraints voters have deliberately locked in over sixty years — tax limits, local-control protections, and the amendment process itself. A general revision puts every one of them on the table at once, in a partisan delegate convention with no agenda limits, when nothing about the document is broken in a way a targeted amendment cannot fix. Voters already hold the scalpel: any specific change can be proposed, debated, and adopted on its own text. The one safeguard on the other side — that a convention's product still needs voter approval — is real, and we print it; it does not justify paying for an open-ended rewrite to reach a vote voters can already force, amendment by amendment. The breadth of the coalition urging NO, from Right to Life of Michigan and the Michigan Chamber of Commerce to the governor, reflects that judgment across the spectrum. Supporters, including the House speaker and the Senate minority leader, argue the document needs a full overhaul; if it does, they can name the articles and amend them. Vote NO.

For the complete Election 2026 breakdown — every race, claim by claim — see the full coverage on our website.

Vote early. Research your candidates. Choose the best moderates, whatever their party — no extremism from either side. And encourage your friends and family to do the same.

Sources

Election result — November 4, 2026

Result pending. No verified call (Associated Press or official) as of November 4, 2026. This page will be updated when the race is called or certified. The original article above is unchanged.

AI-assisted article — but the sources are human, and the facts are very real.

← Full down-ballot enumeration