Under Senate Bill 6449, perfectly valid voter signatures WILL NEVER BE COUNTED

This is as sleazy, conniving and Machiavellian as it gets. Chairman Sam Hunt's original bill required ANYONE, whether paid or unpaid, who collects voter signatures MUST personally write their name, signature, home address, city, state, zip code and date on the back of each petition -- if they don't, then the signatures MUST BE REJECTED BY THE SECRETARY OF STATE. This negation of valid voter signatures drew monstrous protests from the ACLU, newspapers, and citizens. So to supposedly appease critics, he changed the bill so that it became optional to fill it out the back -- and with petitions not filled out on the back, the Secretary of State would be required to check every signature on that page -- all signatures would still count.

This change earned enough votes to get out of committee.

But when the bill moved to Appropriations, the Secretary of State's surrogate, Katie Blinn, told them that with it being optional to fill out the back, it would likely result in all signatures having to be individually verified, costing $140,000 per initiative. SO THE SECRETARY OF STATE TOLD APPROPRIATIONS TO CHANGE THE BILL TO PROHIBIT INITIATIVE SPONSORS FROM TURNING IN PETITIONS UNLESS THE BACK WAS FILLED OUT EVEN IF VALID VOTER SIGNATURES WERE ON THE FRONT (see bottom of page 4 of the staff report).

So, the original bill required valid voter signatures be rejected by the Secretary of State -- now Senate Bill 6449 requires valid voter signatures be thrown in the garbage by initiative sponsors (scan down to Section 13 of the bill).

Either way, the result is the same - under SB 6449, valid voter signatures WILL NEVER BE COUNTED.

Once the Secretary of State accepts petitions, the valid voter signatures on the petitions WILL COUNT (because of court rulings). So they've come up with a sneaky, conniving, Machiavellian scheme to ensure they never receive them -- by requiring initiative sponsors to never turn them in in the first place.

And just to add a bureaucratic nightmare to the process, Senate Bill 6449 requires initiative sponsors to fill out an affidavit for every petition sheet attesting that we've verified that the back of the petition is filled out. 17,000-20,000 petition sheets are turned in so that means initiative sponsors must complete 17,000-20,000 affidavits.

And then there's the body cavity search on citizens who collect signatures. Senate Bill 6449 requires registration, licensing, photo headshots, fingerprinting, criminal background checks, names, personal signatures, & home addresses of citizens who collect signatures.

If their criminalization of participation infuriates you (and it should), please help us fight back by going to our website.