From the LA Times:
SACRAMENTO -- As deadlines came and went, backers of an initiative that could affect the 2008 presidential election continued struggling Friday to gather enough signatures to place the measure before voters.
Don't get too excited though, because the group that's collecting the signatures vows to keep working through the weekend so that they could deliver the sigs by wid-week.
Did that read strange? Well, once again, sometimes rules are just meant to be suggestions:
Initiative organizers often miss deadlines and still qualify their measures, but pushing the target date is risky. Once signatures are submitted, local elections authorities must verify them and send them to the secretary of state, who certifies the measure for the ballot.
On the other hand, their numbers do not look to be a sure bet, and this is where you come in again.
Here's their take on the numbers, and pay attention to the numbers 430,000 and 700,000:
Campaign manager Dave Gilliard said that agents would work through the weekend to obtain the 434,000 valid signatures required to put the Electoral College initiative on next June's ballot and that he expected to submit the names by midweek.
Gilliard was less than certain that he would reach his goal of 700,000 names, a number allowing leeway for signatures that might be disqualified.
"We won't know until they're collected," he said.
Submitting signatures after the filing deadline MUST BE CHALLENGED!
Hundreds of thousands of ill-gotten signatures MUST BE DISQUALIFIED!
I can't do that myself. The California Attorney General, The Secretary of State, or an official from their office make the challenge. An individual or group of California citizens can file suit, if they have the resources. However it happens, it must happen, if the petitions signatures are ultimately submitted.
I hope the right people are paying attention, because this story is not getting the coverage it deserves. This one tactic would almost certainly determine the final outcome of the presidential election. How many times must this be said?
These are the vitally important steps that you need to take today:
- If you witnessed or were duped into signing petitions for the CA electoral votes initiative, please contact the California Attorney General's Office, or the California Secretary of State in some way. Leaving a phone message is great, a written letter is the BEST. Inviting a local congressperson to dinner and asking him/her to deliver the message would be better, I suppose. They might call you back, probably not, though. The point is for the bean counters to total up as many calls on this as possible.
- Take the time to contact the above people if you are a CA citizen and you're just f#%*#g mad that a group of electoral thugs might force an invalid initiative on the ballot.
- Find a reason to blog somewhere about it, send an email to your friends, mention it while on a long drive with the fam. (Believe it or not, it helps to tell people which way a "Yes" or "No" vote actually goes on some initiatives. Many voters got to the polls, utterly devoid of any memory of the political chatter thats been occurring the previous months, and vote for whatever looks nice.)
Thats all, just a bit of preliminary news and exhortations. You may return to your frosted flakes.