Secretary of State Shantel Krebs has ruled against my challenge of Lisa Furlong’s fake-18%-rate-cap petition. In details she sent me this morning, Secretary Krebs says my petition challenge failed to identify enough specific signatures to disqualify Furlong’s petition. Secretary Krebs says that 885 of the 1,219 specific deficient signatures that my challenge itemized were indeed invalid. My challenge hinged on getting the Secretary of State of reject all petition sheets submitted by circulators and notaries who appear to have violated petition rules, so those 885 rejected signatures aren’t anywhere near enough to invalidate Furlong’s calculated 42,195 valid signatures. However, as I reach for a bright side, my volunteer team’s 72.6% success rate on the signatures challenged is better than Furlong’s well-paid mercenary team’s 66.2% valid rate on the signatures it bamboozled out of South Dakotans last fall.
The bulk of the challenged signatures that Secretary Krebs did not throw out were signatures on petition sheets where differing penmanship indicates that either the notary or the circulator provided false information. Secretary Krebs did not say that my team’s evidence was bogus; Secretary Krebs remained agnostic, stating that her office cannot consider those challenges because “Administrative Rule is silent regarding penmanship.”
Secretary Krebs remained silent on two of the five actions that my challenge requested she take. Based on evidence of frequent and systematic violations of notary rules, I requested that Secretary Krebs “Remove Antonio Puga III and Erin Ageton from the office of notary public for their failure to “faithfully and impartially perform the duties of a NOTARY PUBLIC within and for the State of South Dakota according to the law” as specified by the notary public oath (ARSD 5:04:03:01).” I also asked that Secretary Krebs “Forward this affidavit to the South Dakota Attorney General and the States Attorneys of those counties in which the enumerated petition violations appear to have been committed and request that those officials investigate the evidence outlined herein and the Furlong Petition in full for violations of state law pertaining to petitions, elections, and the integrity of the notary seal.” In her initial documentation rejecting my petition challenge, Secretary Krebs does not address these actions. I thus await her response on these two items.
Thus, for now, Amendment U (for Usury!), the payday lenders’ attempt to confuse voters and hijack our constitution, remains on the November ballot. As Smokey the Bear would say, only you, dear voters, can stop fake rate caps. Vote No on U!
The practice of mercenary petition-collectors circulating petitions is just one more way of disenfranchising the grass roots and placing elections into the hands of the affluent who can afford to buy elections from the lowest level on up.
I’ve worked as a paid circulator. Robin’s critique makes sense, but in Meyer v. Grant (1988), the Supreme Court ruled a Colorado ban on paid circulators unconstitutional. I suppose it’s like candidate campaigns: we can’t prohibit a Legislative or Presidential candidate from hiring people to call and knock and distribute campaign materials.
But our investigation of the Furlong petition shows that paid petitioners are not necessarily trustworthy. They succeeded not by quality but by quantity, lying to voters to collect a huge volume of signatures. We have evidence that notaries working for the payday lenders put phony information on petitions. The fake 18% rate cap makes the ballot under a cloud of suspicious activity. We need the Secretary of State and the Attorney General to act on that evidence.
We also need them to prepare legislation that will prevent fraudulent, misrepresentative schemes like this one to be voted into law.
Our work is now to make sure all South Dakotans know that the 18% rate cap is a fraud.
I don’t know…18% seems like a pretty reasonable cap on interest since credit cards can charge like 23% and such, as I understand it. The best thing would be to educate the idiots who take out pay-day loans and pump the money into video lottery to knock it off, but there will always be people you cannot help. It’s called personal responsibility. Nobody is forcing these fellows to take out loans. It’s easy, people…just don’t do it.
you and nancy Reagan….
Great effort Cory. Bamboozled petition signers. I remember when it got really wierd in Rapid City. They were everywhere. The integrity of
the notary seal and the notary were process were just smashed on the ground and stomped on by these goofballs. Many people signed thinking they were doing a good thing.
Lisa Furlong is definitely not on my Christmas list.
Vote NO on U.
“The integrity of the notary seal…”
The horror. The horror.
Where have you been grudznick? The 18% doesn’t apply to anything at all unless it is a verbal, non-written loan. It is only MEANT to look like 18% in order to confuse voters. Apparently it worked on you.
Grudz…..
I trolled you
Lol
Indeed, Mr. Spike. You caused me to mock notaries. And I’d do it again.
Any word on the challenge to the 36% rate cap?
Not yet, Wayne, but Lisa Furlong has emerged from her bunker to issue this bald-faced lie:
Wow. The audacity of Lisa Furlong’s lies. You could not pay me enough to lie so publicly.