Senate Votes to Register Paid Signature Gatherers
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The Free Press: In an effort to address ballot fraud, the Maine Senate voted yes on Monday for legislation (LD 1730) that would require signature gatherers to register with the state and undergo more scrutiny if they are circulating petitions to put a citizen referendum on the ballot. The House of Representatives will take up the legislation next, then it will return to the Senate for a second vote. In spite of a common perception that people's vetoes and citizen referendums are home-grown affairs drawn up by concerned citizens who volunteer to collect signatures, big money and politics are often involved in the process. For example, paid signature gatherers played a large role in recent efforts to get legislation on gay marriage overturned by "people's veto." National Petition Management, one of the top signature-gathering firms in the country, was paid $308,000 to collect signatures to put the people's veto of the same-sex marriage law on the ballot last year. That ballot measure passed last November, effectively outlawing same-sex marriage just months after it went into law. The people's veto to overturn the tax reform bill that was passed by the Maine Legislature last year got on the June 2010 ballot with the help of the Republican Party and Olympic Consulting in Lewiston. The Maine Republican Party donated $29,000 to a group called Still Fed Up With Taxes, who, in turn, paid Olympic Consulting and a long list of street-level signature gatherers over $66,000 to collect enough signatures to put a people's veto on the June ballot. Paying people to collect signatures is legal in Maine, and it is also legal to pay signatures gatherers by the signature, but it is a lack of regulation and oversight of the process that has earned Maine a grade of D from the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, who tracks ballot integrity in all 50 states. The BISC, an organization focused on uncovering fraud, found that Maine did a poor job of dissuading frivolous legislation, needed much greater accountability of companies and individuals who circulate petitions, and better oversight of how that data is collected.
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