Secretary of State Sam Reed is supporting the unconstitutional proposal to criminalize per-signature payments to initiative petition circulators
Reed said Friday that paying on a per-signature basis -- as opposed to paying by the hour or using volunteers -- creates an incentive for initiative workers to forge voter signatures or commit other kinds of fraud.Most volunteer gatherers also have an incentive to commit fraud, the expectation of benefit if the initiative passes. The only documented fraud here is Reed knowingly making the baseless claim that per-signature compensation causes more fraud than other compensation. (See e-mails from Reed's deputy, here and here).
Reed's overall position is that signature verification is good enough to prevent fraudulent ballot signatures, but not good enough to prevent fraudulent petition signatures. Yet the only documented cases of false signatures being accepted are on ballots, not on petitions.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at January 29, 2007 06:06 PM | Email This"That the authority hereby conferred upon the legislature shall not be construed to grant to the legislature any exclusive power of lawmaking nor in any way limit the initiative and referendum powers reserved by the people."
In a real laugher of a scenario, can you imagine if the ACLU entered this fray? Isn't their motto "our only client is the Constitution"? Aren't they the self described "champions of the first amendment"?
What would the poor democrats do then?
He likes his job, regardless of what between the parenthesis.
Or he takes his job as a subordinate to the Queen more seriously than being an official who was elected by us.
Posted by: Chris on January 29, 2007 06:24 PMSam Reed has (starting with the election boondoggle):
Stated in error that the problems in King County did not influence the outcome.
Has been a proponent of the most fraudulent voting mechanism ever devised...all mail ballots.
Has refused to push for real election reform.
Has opposed picture ID requirement to vote
Has been a proponent of a bill that violates the 1st and 14th amendment of the US Constitution (as decided by the US Supreme Court) and Article 1 of the Washington State Constitution as written in clear language.
Yup...that's a honorable job all right.
Now for those of us with the mental capacity that exceeds a 10 year old...we couldn't have a worse Secretary of State if it was Lennin himself.
Posted by: drw on January 29, 2007 09:49 PMI would donate and vote for Ruderman against this f'ing moron
Posted by: B on January 29, 2007 09:58 PMI'm not saying that people who I have supported have not turned out to be the antithesis of what I thought I was getting, but I guarandamntee you as soon as I know I have been screwed I throw them over the transom.
The Party has a long history of supporting Party insiders “no matter what.” When you give them money you help to perpetuate this, think about that.
The R by his name means nothing - vote for the person ! Mr. Reed keeps helping the advance of Socialism in Washington State by his lack of decisive actions, but no shortage of excuses to correct voting problems, that primarily benefit the party in power.
Posted by: KS on January 30, 2007 09:17 AMMy reading of the State minimum wage statue is one can pay a piece mail rate as long as one pays the minimum hourly rate is the floor
Mr Reed cannot provide proof of his assertions. He has failed to request prosecution in King and other counties where voter fraud has taken place.
The sad reality is in today's economy, you need to pay people to gather signatures and compete against the status quo in Olympia.
Posted by: Green Lake Mark on January 30, 2007 09:43 AMAnyone who thinks McKenna has an scruples regarding the law and the constitution is sadly mistaken. He campaigned on a promise to eliminate corruption in Olympia. When is he going to get started? Fact is, he's part of the cover-ups.
Posted by: Don on January 30, 2007 10:38 AMThis is wholly incorrect. Secretary Reed supported the legislation requiring ID at all poll sites.
After the bill became law, our office drafted new rules (WACs) to implement the new law.
Our office also sponsored a field trip of legislative committee and caucus staff and attornies to visit King County Election during the canvassing process. When one of the legislative staffers asked Dean Logan if the new law was a problem, Logan said less than a handful of voters forgot their ID and had to go home to get it or didn't have the required ID.
So the new law works and does not pose an undue burden.
Steve Excell
Assistant Secretary of State
Olynpia, WA 98504
Also, incorrect. During the aftermath of the 2004 Gubernatorial Election, Secretary Reed frequently stated that serious mistakes occured in King County during the original count, machine recount and hand recount.
Many of the mistakes results from practices that were highlighted in an earlier review (like an audit) conducted by Secretary Reed's Elections Division Certification and Training Section.
Remember the Seattle Times stories re felon voting in King County? We know felons voted. We now scrub the new Statewide Voter Registration Database quarterly to eliminate felons.
We know that spouses voted for their deceased spouses. We now scrub the new Statewide Voter Registration Database monthly against the Dept of Health death database. We are the only state in the Nation comparing our voter list with the Social Security Death Index -- finding our residents and voters who die out of state (like in Hawaii or Southern Calfornia).
BTW: Washington State, under Reed's leadership, was the first state on the West Coast to have a Statewide Voter Registration Database up-and-running doing a fully-automated, real-time check of all new voter registrants against our state drivers license database and the social security database. The Help Amercian Vote Act (HAVA) required all states to be online by January 01, 2006 -- and Washington State was the only West Coast State to make it on time.
New York State is now implementing Washington's database technology.
Steve Excell
Assistant Secretary of State
Olympia, WA
This is incorrect. I have seen initiative petition sheets all filled out in the same handwriting. Such abuse does occur.
A new law, passed last session (2006), required all paid signature gatherers to sign a certification on the back of each initiative petition. This would have allowed our office to collect meaningful data on the "signature invalidation" rate. This requirement was struck down by an Attorney General Opinion citing a flaw in the law.
Our elections staff reports that the invalidation rate is generally much higher in initiative campaigns where the organizers use all-paid signature gathers versus those where all volunteers are used.
A high "invalidation rate" does not necessarily mean fraud. It may be a voter signing the same petition twice. It be a non-registered voter signing a form.
Steve Excell
Assistant Secretary of State
Olympia, WA 98504
It is also interesting that Sam Reed (and Washington State) was the state selected by the Brennan Center For Justice to challenge list "scrubbing" techniques. We not only restrict the list, we will "scrub' you from the list if you have an initial, number or case condition that doesn't match. Has the voter file been "scrubbed" in an impartial manner? Some counties actually gained voters after the process. How did that happen?
You posted the following on Soundpolitics.com: Our elections staff reports that the invalidation rate is generally much higher in initiative campaigns where the organizers use all-paid signature gathers versus those where all volunteers are used.
We've sent everyone in the Secretary of State's office numerous emails and provided supporting documentation (two in August 2006, one in January 2007, and several in the past few days) that clearly demonstrate that your post, your staff, and your office is providing demonstrably false data and, thus, demonstrably false conclusions about initiative campaigns to the press, the public, and legislators, both one-one-one and in public testimony before house and senate committees.
Simply take the time to verify with the Public Disclosure Commission the information we've provided and ADMIT THE ERRORS, CORRECT THE RECORD, AND TELL LEGISLATORS THAT YOU'RE SORRY.
P.S. Take the time to read Stefan's February 3rd post "Tim Eyman - 1, Sam Reed - 0" and the comments within it. The Sec of State is in a hole, stop digging.