Proposal Would Require Petition Circulators to be Registered Voters

2/11/2008

OKLAHOMA CITY (February 11, 2008) – Individuals gathering signatures for an initiative petition would have to be registered voters in the state of Oklahoma under a reform proposal state Rep. Jabar Shumate plans to pursue this session.

“The point of the initiative petition is to allow the people to place important issues on an election ballot,” said Shumate, D-Tulsa. “If the people who circulate a petition don’t care enough about the issue to even register to vote on it, how can they justify asking Oklahoma taxpayers to pay the cost of the election? This is a common-sense reform that should be embraced by all lawmakers.

“Recent initiative petitions, including one to end state policies benefiting minority groups, have been controversial and legally troubled due to the use of circulators who were not even residents of Oklahoma.

In addition, potentially fraudulent signatures have been discovered on the recent initiative petition to ban government-sponsored race and gender preferences.

As a result, Shumate is carrying legislation this year to reform the initiative petition process.

Senate Bill 1913, by state Sen. Jeff Rabon (D-Hugo) and Shumate, would require the Secretary of State to “verify that each person signing the petition is a registered voter” in Oklahoma before the measure could be placed on an election ballot.

The bill would also allow voters to contact the Office of the Secretary of State to have their name removed from a ballot petition if they have signed it in error as the result of misleading information provided by a signature collector.

Shumate plans to amend that legislation in the House to require that petition circulators also be registered Oklahoma voters.

“Our initiative petition process must be beyond reproach,” Shumate said. “We must eliminate fraud from the system so the voters of Oklahoma can feel confident the system is not being rigged by wealthy out-of-state groups without any ties to Oklahoma.”
 

Source: Press Release