But I think you're onto something here with campaign finance report and the out-of-state expenditures - but the issue is the number of small-time individuals from various other states that clearly were paid signature-gatherers. The dichotomy between this and MCRI (MCRI was careful to use only in-state gatherers, but heavily accused of "fraud") and Drolet's Dillon recall (Drolet initially disqualified for having a few out-of-district gatherers in his process (now on the ballot because of Consitutional challenge victory).  It's interesting to see the left decry out-of-area circulators, or "signature fraud", when there's pretty good evidence that there were a number of them here - although evidence of a nature sufficient to cause criminal investigations (which might not be Constitutional anyway) would require someone with serious time and money to sit down and analyze the petitions, and the challenge period is already theoretically passed.  But look at the reports - in the memo sub-items for the petition company you'll find the hundreds of signature gatherers recorded.  A number of them use out-of-state addresses - which raises the question, since at the time there was no Dillon-federal-ruling on use of out-of-area circulators Michigan law required a statement under oath that you were eligible to register in Michigan (implying residency) and that you were giving an accurate address.  So did some of these circulators provide inaccurate addresses (perjury, regardless of their residency, which is a nebulous issue)?  Of course, that would require reviewing tens of thousands of petition sheets -- but I have a good guess there are several.

So the left doesn't mind playing fast and loose with the rules when they like the issue, but if anyone on the right so much as sneezes on a petition the left would love to throw them in jail and make a chilling example of them.