Initiative process needs changes to protect integrity

Published 4:47 pm Friday, February 19, 2010

If you have lived in the state of Washington for even a few years, you have probably been approached to sign a petition to put an initiative on the ballot. Many of us believe allowing citizens to directly propose new laws and vote on them strengthens our democracy, but day to day, we do not think about technical details of how initiatives make it to the ballot.

The signature gathering process has changed dramatically over the years. It is now a multi-million-dollar business with the potential to undermine the integrity of our democracy.

In the past decade, paid signature gathering firms have emerged as the primary method to gather the signatures needed to qualify a measure for the ballot. In Washington alone, nearly $7.2 million has been paid to firms since 2002.

According to the national, nonpartisan Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, fraud and forgery from paid signature gatherers is on the rise. The sad news is Washington is not prepared to confront these abuses. When the initiative process was adopted in Washington in 1912, it was a tool for democracy. Times have changed, but our laws have not kept up. In fact, the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center rated the integrity of Washington’s system as failing, noting the lack of standards, transparency, accountability, oversight and enforcement in the signature gathering process.

Professional signature gatherers often travel from state to state and are paid by the signature, which can create incentive for abuse of the system. And since gatherers are on the move and have no ties to the state they are working in, it should come as no surprise that cases of forgery, fraud and deception are documented in many states — like Washington — that have lax accountability standards.

Next month, a mother and daughter signature gathering team will face charges in Spokane on 45 counts of forgery on petitions they were collecting for an initiative sponsored by Tim Eyman. While the case has not yet been tried, the Washington State Patrol followed up with 40 names on the petitions, asking them to confirm their signatures were valid. Twenty-nine affidavits — 73 percent — responded that their signature had been forged.

The Ballot Initiative Network and its 25 partner organizations are strong believers in the initiative process as a critical part of our political system. We are concerned that systemic forgery, fraud and deception will cause voters to lose faith in the system. Locally owned Fieldworks LLC has taken measures to be a responsible corporation by running background checks, hiring locals, and implementing a pay model with quality control measures. But they are a rare anomaly — current state law doesn’t require background checks or prohibit convicted identity thieves from collecting voters’ information. And there is no requirement that gatherers affirm they even gathered the signatures they turn in — and thus no way of tracing a perpetrator of fraud, forgery or identity theft.

A bill being considered by the Legislature would enact measures to prevent abuse. The bill would require signature gatherers — paid and volunteer — to sign the back of petitions attesting they collected signatures lawfully. Additionally, the bill (SB 6449) requires paid signature gatherers to register with the state — key to stopping individuals convicted of abusing the system from working in Washington.

Tim Eyman, Washington’s most prolific initiative filer, and Citizen Solutions, the firm he most often uses to collect signatures, argue this bill would make it harder to get initiatives on the ballot. Fieldworks, the signature gathering firm with built-in quality control measures, has testified in support of the bill. Fieldworks has worked in states across the country, many with stricter laws than Washington, without problems qualifying initiatives to the ballot. Nineteen out of 24 initiative states require signature gatherers to sign petitions, California and Oregon among them — both of which have more initiatives on the ballot each year than Washington. If other states can insist on quality control, and reputable firms have developed their systems in the absence of one here, one has to wonder if Citizen Solutions is just trying to dodge accountability for their own employees.

Civic participation is what our lawmakers had in mind in 1912. Legislators should honor that intention and preserve the integrity of our system and the trust of our voters today by voting yes on SB 6449.

Kristina Logsdon is director of the Ballot Initiative Network, a collective effort of more than 30 organizations representing nurses, firefighters, labor unions, environmental conservationists, and anti-hunger and immigrant rights advocates. (206-420-0139, klogsdon@winwinaction.org)

Lew Granofsky is a Portland-based principal with FieldWorks, LLC, a national ballot initiative signature gathering and consulting firm.