By Chris Andrews, State Journal Political Editor

It's not a smoking gun, exactly. More like smoking statistics.

But political consultant Mark Grebner's analysis of signatures presents a compelling argument that thousands of Michigan voters didn't have a clue that the petitions they were signing were to end affirmative action in public institutions.

He found:

• Black voters more likely to sign than white voters.
• Democrats more likely to sign than Republicans.

The trend was consistent across the state and lends support to the argument by opponents of the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative that voters were deliberately misled.

"We would expect to see an overlap of whites and Republicans," Grebner said Tuesday. "It was clear it was a petition that appealed more to Democrats and blacks."

But Grebner said that voters are ultimately responsible for signing the petitions, and that his analysis doesn't justify keeping the measure off the ballot.

Petition organizers and the company that circulated the petitions both insist that petition gatherers were adequately trained and honestly described the proposal to voters who asked about it.

The Michigan Civil Rights Initiative turned in 500,000 signatures - far more than the 318,000 it needed to get on the November 2006 ballot.

But an opposition group, By Any Means Necessary, challenged the petitions, arguing that signature gatherers misled voters into believing that the proposal was to protect affirmative action rather than end it.

Leon Drolet, a Republican state representative from Clinton Township and a leader in the petition drive, said the accusations were hilarious. Many of the petition gatherers were otherwise unemployed and were circulating petitions in places such as Detroit and Flint, which have a lot of black voters. He said polls show 25 percent of 40 percent of blacks support the proposal.

"It's not hard to get African Americans to sign," he said.

The Board of State Canvassers made a somewhat contorted conclusion: that it didn't have the authority to investigate fraud complaints, and it wouldn't certify the petitions because of suspicion of fraud.

That, of course, sends it to the courts, which likely will place it on the ballot.

Grebner is THE state expert when it comes to voting lists. He's a Democratic Ingham County commissioner but sells lists to candidates and groups of various political leanings.

He has compiled lists of signers of petition drives for years. He can tell with a few computer clicks whether you signed the petition to ban mourning dove hunting or outlaw gay marriage or partial birth abortion

He says people who sign petitions are three times as likely to agree with the petition as oppose it. But that's not the case in this petition drive, where demographic groups more likely to support affirmative action disproportionately signed petitions aimed at ending it.

How did that happen?

Opponents believe there was a massive and intentional effort to deceive. Grebner said he was approached twice by circulators who misrepresented the proposal.

The very name of the group - Michigan Civil Rights Initiative - suggests that the group would be protecting affirmative action.