In case anyone forgot...

Please please PLEASE do not sign anything without reading through it first! One would think this is obvious, but...

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Possible *Ballot Petition* Fraud in California: Electoral Vote Initiative
by Vikingkingq, Wed Nov 14, 2007

First, I should explain that I'm a graduate student at the University of California Santa Barbara.

Today I witnessed what I think is an incidence of ballot petition fraud relating to the electoral vote apportionment initiative - the proposal to apportion California's electoral votes by congressional district, unilaterally giving 19 of California's electoral votes to the Republicans in 2008.


Outside the UCEN (student center plus bookstore plus food court) at UC Santa Barbara, there were a number of people with cardboard clipboards soliciting people to sign ballot petitions for a proposal to spend $1 billion on cancer hospitals for kids. If you agree to sign, they tell you "you need to sign 4 times." What they do not tell you is that the three pages after the ballot initiative on cancer hospitals are different ballot initiatives: the second proposes to abolish eminent domain, the third proposals to abolish rent control, and the fourth is the proposal to apportion California's electoral votes by district (the so-called Dirty Tricks Initiative).

I should note that the clipboard is arranged such that a rubber band holding the petitions to the cardboard is positioned on the top of the page, across the actual ballot language in question - thus, partially hiding the text of the ballot initiatives on pages 2-4 unless you actually stop and pull down the top of the page.

I agreed to sign the cancer initiative, but the comment about signing four times raised a red flag, because I'm familiar with the structure of ballot petitions, so I paused before signing and looked at the other initiatives. However, I'm absolutely sure that most of the people signing, young college students on a rush to get their lunches and off to class, did not take this step.

What they are doing is getting people to sign for ballot initiatives without their knowledge or informed consent, using young peoples' desire to do a good thing and their lack of familiarity with the legal paperwork of initiative petitions. If this is not illegal it is certainly deeply unethical. The moment I realized what was going on, I told the petitioners that they shouldn't be telling people to sign for ballot initiatives they're not aware of. Immediately after, I called the school newspaper, the Daily Nexus, the Courage Campaign, the Santa Barbara Democratic Central Committee, and the California Democratic Party.

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This is the Dirty Tricks Initiative I've been ranting about for a while. Sure enough, it's come back to life, and college students are prime targets for signature gathering because either they don't care or they don't take the time to try. These people are in Berkeley--it's been reported that they're doing the same thing here. More info

Keeping an eye on random stuff...educational interest...nothing in particular but a few interesting tidbits...

The "Dirty Tricks" campaign may still be alive and kicking despite outrage over Republican (damn you, Giuliani) ploys to fix the elections again. Just something to keep an eye on. I guess we'll know in a week or two whether they're still going to pursue the initiative without Hiltachk's sponsorship, but if they do it's something we should all be aware of.

I don't know if any of you have noted the Iran buildup over the last few months (here's a little recap). Last week the Senate (76-22) took steps to support General Petraeus in condemning Iranian leadership as a "terrorist organization" through passing the Kyl-Lieberman motion. I particularly liked the part where it states "it should be the policy of the United States to combat, contain, and roll back the violent activities and destabilizing influence of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, its foreign facilitators such as Lebanese Hezbollah, and its indigenous Iraqi proxies." (hahaha...Iran's parliament took a similar step against the CIA and US Army.)

Meanwhile, what's going on in Afghanistan? If Hamid Karzai has lost hope in his ability to maintain peace, what will it take for us to recognise our own failures? I was surprised I read that "Several former members of the Taliban government serve in Parliament, and a few more hold positions in provincial governments. Prominent members of Mr. Hekmatyar’s party have been given government positions and have taken part in parliamentary elections" (NYT, 9/29/07). People repeatedly write, and it's interesting to consider, How close is Afghanistan to a 9/10/01 state?

Well, maybe that's all nonsense...feel free to delete/complain/comment/add to it.

Off to jeer Hilary...See you all soon!

-Palmer