Thursday, November 15, 2007

California's disguised petitions

If you sign petitions, read every page where you put your signature.

Susie of Suburban Guerrilla
:
I should note that the clipboard is arranged such that a rubber band holding the petitions to the cardboard is positioned on the top of the page, across the actual ballot language in question - thus, partially hiding the text of the ballot initiatives on pages 2-4 unless you actually stop and pull down the top of the page.

I agreed to sign the cancer initiative, but the comment about signing four times raised a red flag, because I’m familiar with the structure of ballot petitions, so I paused before signing and looked at the other initiatives. However, I’m absolutely sure that most of the people signing, young college students on a rush to get their lunches and off to class, did not take this step.

What they are doing is getting people to sign for ballot initiatives without their knowledge or informed consent, using young peoples’ desire to do a good thing and their lack of familiarity with the legal paperwork of initiative petitions. If this is not illegal it is certainly deeply unethical. The moment I realized what was going on, I told the petitioners that they shouldn’t be telling people to sign for ballot initiatives they’re not aware of. Immediately after, I called the school newspaper, the Daily Nexus, the Courage Campaign, the Santa Barbara Democratic Central Committee, and the California Democratic Party.

Perhaps if you see this happening, tell the petition collectors that even though they are being paid by the signature or by the hour, you're going to report them for obtaining signatures under false pretenses. Would this work? Sadly ... there is no law to protect us from voters being absolute dumbshits.

Read each petition that you sign.

Update 11/16: More links.

9 comments:

pygalgia said...

That is such a simple truth. Read before signing (anything, not just petitions)...why is this so hard for some people to grasp?

ellroon said...

They want their civic duties to be quick and painless. Kinda like how they want jury duty to be...

Steve Bates said...

Flashback to approx. 1975:

-----
Petition holder: "Would you sign a petition to support starving children?"

Steve: "What organization do you represent?"

PH: "The Church."

S: "What church?"

PH: "All churches."

S (incredulous): "ALL churches?"

PH: "All churches. [pause] Unification Church."
-----

Read everything you sign. Ask questions of the person with the petition. Do not expect honest answers... from Republicans any more than from Moonies.

ellroon said...

Damn right, Steve. How sad.

Anonymous said...

ellroon:

I tried to thank you for posting this info on Eschaton last night, but sheets got in the way. Thank you.

I wrote Tyler Suchman at our local blog in Ojai and apparently I wasn't the only one who did; he put up a thread about this underhanded crap, and linked to your blog as well: http://www.ojaipost.com/2007/11/santa-barbara-ballot-petition-fraud.shtml

Once upon a time I would have blamed the LaRouche faithful for this kind of crap, but now I don't know... The Paulistas? Garden variety Goopers? Minions of Howie Rich, the New Yorker who floated California's Prop. 90 last year?

These people need to go down, and so do their signatures gathered thus far, if not their initiatives in general.

Is this a Debra Bowen matter or a Jerry Brown matter? No problem -- I'll write to both of them, and would respectfully suggest that others do the same.

ellroon said...

Thanks! Updated post to include your links.

Anonymous said...

For those who live in Ventura County and get the Ventura County Star, (or who would be willing to register to read the online version at http://www.venturacountystar.com ), Thomas Elias has a commentary linking one of the initiatives to the Giuliani campaign in today's Opinion section, page B11, top center of the page.

ellroon said...

Thanks again, check new post.

ellroon said...

Here.