Since the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade, at least 600,000 and possibly as many as 750,000 people in Michigan signed a petition to put a referendum on the state ballot that would ensure the right to abortion and other reproductive health measures. In a separate initiative, organizers also collected over half a million signatures for a referendum to establish early voting and other reforms to make it easier to vote.

Last week, Republican election officials blocked both proposals from going on the ballot. The state’s supreme court, with a Democratic majority, will likely overturn the decision this week. But even though Republicans are unlikely to succeed in these two cases, their efforts are yet more evidence of the party’s increasing willingness to do away with democratic norms when it fits its agenda.

In both cases, legal objections rest on weak foundations. The two Republicans on Michigan’s Board of State Canvassers agreed with conservative activists who objected to the spacing of the text in the “Reproductive Freedom for All” ballot initiative. They also agreed with objections to the early voting referendum on the grounds it did not sufficiently describe the parts of the state constitution it would amend. The language of both referenda was previously approved by state election officials, and no one claims that either proposal failed to gather the number of valid petition signatures required to appear on the ballot.