Now that Gov. Newsom has signed an order that allows voting by mail in November's presidential election, signature gathering for petitions could soon undergo similar changes, according to experts.
“If the time is right to vote by mail, it’s past due for allowing people to sign petitions online especially in the time of COVID-19,” said Michael Arno, founder of Arno Political Consultants. “It’s hard to walk up to somebody these days and say, ‘Take my dirty pen. Sign my dirty petition.’”
Statewide, the total number of votes cast for the governor in the preceding election is what determines the number of signatures required to place an initiative on a ballot.
“The cost of what it takes to get on a ballot often excludes grassroots groups but if electronic signature gathering was allowed, people would be able to read the entire initiative before signing and it would drop the cost of what it would take to get on the ballot for grassroots organizations,” Arno told the Southern California Record. “The influence of money wouldn't play as big a role.”
Fear of coronavirus exposure is just one of the more recent factors impacting signature-gathering companies nationwide. For example, the state of Arkansas changed some rules after finding some petition gathering companies were taking advantage, according to Arkansas State Rep. Joe Cloud.
“We’ve tried to correct the fraud that can be associated with outside special interest groups coming in or big money groups coming in, manipulating the system and having an effect on what goes on with the people that live in our state when they aren’t residents here,” Rep. Cloud told the Southern California Record.
It used to be that there were no rules regulating where in the state signatures were secured but now at least 45 of Arkansas’ total 75 counties must be represented in the signature process in order for an initiative to be qualified for inclusion on the ballot.
“I'm very proud of what we did in 2019, legislatively,” Cloud said in an interview. “We've cleaned it up a lot. As often the case, it was a retroactive response and I sure wish it would have been proactive but at least we did get some things done even though lobbyists tried to defeat it.”
Contrary to Arno, Cloud is 100% against allowing signature gathering to occur electronically.
“There is the possibility for increased fraud,” said Cloud. “There have been many instances proven, whether if from just ballots cast in an absentee way, where it’s rife with corruption.”
The signature-gathering industry is also subject to disputes.
“Every cycle we get complaints from somebody claiming that they were misled about what a ballot measure was actually for when they were asked to sign a petition,” said Stephen Kaufman, an attorney and former president of the California Political Attorneys Association. “There are some petition circulators who are more scrupulous than others. A lot of them have multiple measures that they're circulating at any one time so explanations can get lost in translation when descriptions are shortcutted but I would not say it is a rampant problem that we've seen.”
For example, in 2008, Mark Anthony Jacoby, who’d worked for Arno in 2005 was arrested for voter fraud in California, according to media reports, and later pleaded guilty.
"Mark works for everybody and he was working for somebody else at the time [of his arrest] but that always gets stuck with me because that's how it was reported initially," said Arno who founded his petition circulating business in 1979. “Everybody in this business has been accused at one time or another. Oftentimes, initiatives can be very transformative so that the battle is now begun even before the initiative gets filed sometimes. Opponents attack everybody involved. I didn't do Proposition 8 but the company that did Prop 8 was bashed like crazy.”
As for Jacoby, Arno says he still works for signature gathering companies.
“Mark works for every company that does what I do and there's about 10 of us,” said Arno.