Many of you have read Vikingkingq's excellent diary on ballot petition fraud in California. I encountered the same situation a few weeks ago in Davis.
Here's what I saw: the petition gatherers were at a table with signs that said "Children's Hospital Bond - UC." On the table were many clipboards all with the bond initiative on top. The guy told me, "It has 4 parts, so sign all four pages." The clipboard had rubber bands above and below the written description of the petition, so when you pull up the page to sign beneath, the rubber band obscures the written part of the petition above. I pulled up the page and one underneath was the electoral college vote split; one was the eminent domain one; and I didn't see the third because I got upset and started yelling at the guy before I could see it!
I immediately called the Secretary of State's office. I also talked to the local police and the county elections board. Here's what they told me.
- Misrepresenting a petition that people are signing is a misdemeanor. However, the police told me that they can't arrest for a misdemeanor unless they directly observe the individual doing this. So you can't expect them to do much about it unless the police officer sees and hears the person misrepresenting what the person is signing.
- Once they are turned in, the signatures are NOT a public document. You cannot challenge the signatures. The only way to get them wiped is to notify the people on the list what it was they signed (which, of course, we don't know who they were since it's not a public document). Those individuals can then call their county elections board and request to have their signature removed.
Thus, the only way to get these names stripped is to put it out there in the media so people can find out what they signed and let their county elections official know about it.
- The Secretary of State's office told me there are many many layers between the people paying for the signatures and the actual guy on the street doing the gathering, so that he felt it was unlikely that it could be proven that the upper end folks had a hand in the fraud that the on the street people were perpetrating.
I wonder though if it may be possible to show any kind of organized plan, since what Viking observed in Santa Barbara was approximately identical to what I saw in Davis, operated by Manna Wellness Corp.
If you've seen these guys out doing similar things, please post below.
Thanks!