This is an intriguing decision, analogizing the challenge to cases protecting advocacy groups’ right to circulate petitions without undue regulation.
Category Archives: petition signature gathering
“Democratic operative charged with NJ election fraud”
This one’s not the work of a criminal mastermind.
According to [AG] Platkin, James Devine allegedly emailed the Secretary of State’s Division of Elections about 1,948 fraudulent voter certifications in support of [a] petition for a spot on the ballot. Because of the ongoing COVID pandemic, the state allowed electronic signatures on the nominating papers.
A few days later, on April 9, 2021, the New Jersey Democratic State Committee challenged Devine’s paperwork by detailing issues with the voter certifications, including a certification that at least one voter was dead, Platkin said.
In addition, every voter certification was in the same font and signature style and one voter apparently included a number in his name, “Jose8,” Platkin said.
In addition, Platkin said, in almost every case, the same number of extra spaces were between the city name and “NJ” in the address line. The state Division of Elections found it suspicious and believed that it indicated a computer mail merge program had filled out the forms, the attorney general added.
(The candidate supported by the petitions was removed from the ballot.)
“‘I feel duped’: Inside the fast-food industry’s push to dismantle a new California labor law”
LAT:
Susan Bushnell was in a hurry when a man, clipboard in hand, approached her outside a Walmart Supercenter in Vista, Calif., one afternoon last September.
The man asked Bushnell to sign a petition as she wrangled her fussing 5-year-old daughter into a shopping cart. He said the petition would help to raise wages for fast-food workers in California.
“Oh, that’s a good cause,”Bushnell remembers thinking, having once worked in retail. Bushnell paused her rush into the San Diego County store to jot down her signature.
But what the man told Bushnell was false. The petition was part of an effort to kill a newly approved law that could bring significant wage increases for California’s fast-food workers.
That law, known as Assembly Bill 257, or the FAST Recovery Act, was set to go into effect Jan. 1 but is now on hold. State election officials said last week that a coalition of fast-food corporations and industry trade groups, which raised millions to oppose the law, secured enough valid signatures to block implementation of AB 257 until California voters decide next year whether to repeal the law.
Bushnell is among 14 voters interviewed by The Times who say petition circulators for the ballot measure to overturn AB 257 lied to them about what they were signing. Others said the signature gatherers made vague and misleading claims — a Hollywood canvasser, for instance, presented the petition as an inflation cure — or tried to hide legally required paperwork explaining the proposed referendum, sometimes becoming abusive when questioned.
“Tangled efforts, fraud allegations, may keep Green Party off the ballot in NC”
Fascinating story from WRAL, suggesting that Democratic operatives tried to persuade signers of a Green Party petition to ask that their names be removed, leading to the State Board of Elections voting not to certify the Green Party.
Techniques for Grassroots Campaign Volunteer Mobilization
Joe Spaulding, lead field strategist for the Voters Not Politicians Michigan independent redistricting campaign that got 440,000 signatures in 4 months without paying any signature gatherers, reveals some follicular (and data-supported) tactics for fighting diminishing returns out in canvass-land. Thread.
Ballot initiative skullduggery?
The plot thicks. Maybe.
Earlier this week, I’d mentioned a movement to amend state constitutions to prohibit voting by noncitizens in state elections, even though every state currently prohibits voting by noncitizens in state elections.
Now a report featuring speculation (and it is only that) about another motive for the campaign in Florida, where the nonprofit is based: the possible attempt to corner the market on petition circulators, to box out another campaign.
And in the middle of it all, the election administrators trying to keep up with the volume.
A fight over certifying referenda for signature-gathering
When partisan officials control the process for certifying summaries and titles for initiatives and referenda heading onto the ballot, there will be controversy along the way. This story is about alleged foot-dragging on beginning the petitioning process to validate a Missouri referendum on a new abortion law.
Montana Court Grants Relief in Challenge to Green Party Petition
From the conclusion of the district court order in the case challenging the Green Party’s candidate petition:
1. Certain signatures on the Petition are declared invalid …. Removal of these signatures results in the Petition not qualifying in the 34 House districts required by § 13-10-601,MCA.2. Plaintiffs’ complaint for a declaratory judgment removing the Montana Green Party from the election ballot is GRANTED.
2. The Green Party’s Petition is declared invalid and the Secretary is directed to remove the Montana Green Party from the election ballot. The Secretary, his agents, officers,
employees, and successors, and all persons acting in concert with each or any of them, are enjoined from implementing, enforcing, or giving any effect to certification of the Green Party’s Petition.
“Under the Gun in Petition Challenges”
The Chicago Sun-Times reports that armed private investigators visited a signatory to and circulator of third-party candidate petitions, trying to get them to sign affidavits that the signatures were fraudulent (h/t BAN).
Breaking: Divided 9th Circuit Strikes Down CA Law Requiring Identity of Ballot Measure Proponents on Face of Petition
The vote on this point in Chula Vista Citizens for Jobs v. Norris was 2-1. I expect this issue will go en banc and perhaps to the Supreme Court—with a decent chance of reversal.
Still No Word from Michigan AG as To Whether There Will Be an Appeal in Conyers Ballot Access Case
Time is short, so I’m guessing this means no appeal, but who knows?
See my earlier coverage on the potential for a successful appeal.
“New Jersey: Vineland mayoral recall gets more time due to big judicial ruling “
Recall Elections Blog: “Big news out of New Jersey that should have an impact beyond recalls….”
Similar issue to the Conyers decision today.
“Michigan SOS: Conyers will remain off Aug. 5 ballot”
Detroit News reports. But we are awaiting a ruling today from a U.S. District court in the federal lawsuit.
“How Political Insiders Control the Ballot”
Jeff Jacoby column on ballot access and Rep. Conyers.