I hate having to use valuable blogging time saying that Pat Powers is right. But he’s right: the SD Voice team screwed up badly this Saturday.
Powers reported with glee that my own circulators of the People Power Petition committed the same grave error Saturday at the Sioux Empire Fair that G. Mark Mickelson’s petitioners committed here in Aberdeen at the Brown County Fair two years ago: leaving petitions out in public without anyone supervising them. While Powers’s motivation for posting the evidence of my circulators’ breach of protocol is motivated by personal and political malice more than concern for the integrity of the ballot question petition process, but he is 100% right to throw my 2017 words back at me now:
Which failure is most grievous?
- Petitions don’t sell themselves. Having a petition sitting out by itself says nobody is interested enough in your issue to sit there and promote it.
- Leaving petition unsecured means honyockers like me can walk up, riffle through the pages, and read every name and address of everyone who has signed so far. Petitions are ultimately public documents, but not until the ballot question submits them to the Secretary of State.
- Signed petitions are precious documents. Speaker Mickelson is spending good money (at least on booth space—the only circulator disclosure forms I saw on the table indicated that whoever was supposed to be working the table was a volunteer) on this petition. Leaving Mickelson’s petition unattended (and when I made a final pass by the table around vendor closing time at nine p.m., the petition sheets were still lying out on the table, as if to be left in the open overnight) allows political enemies like those out-of-state Koch brothers or mere pranksters to steal those petitions. Voters’ signatures, just like their votes, are sacred and deserve protection.
- State law requires that circulators witness every signature. If I had scribbled my name on any of those attended sheets, I’d have rendered that sheet invalid. If any of the names I saw on those unattended sheets were added by citizens without a witness, then any circulator who signs the circulator’s oath on those sheets will commit perjury and end up in court and in the news like Annette Bosworth.
Protect Our Ballot? Ha! Mickelson needs to start with Protecting His Petition.
[and from the comment section]: …every sheet left out in the open unattended on that table is now in question. In good conscience, Mickelson can’t submit those sheets [Cory Allen Heidelberger, “Team Mickelson Leaves Petition Unattended at Brown County Fair,” Dakota Free Press, 2017.08.17].
Powers absolutely ignored his Republican friend Mark Mickelson’s poor petition management at the Brown County Fair in 2017 in favor of the usual partisan personal attacks. Because I give a genuine darn about the petition process, the law, and many other things beyond my personal and partisan interests, I cannot ignore my own failure now.
My petition team confirms that the photos Powers posted are legit, that at some point on Saturday, the circulator manning my booth left the petitions unattended. I am told the absence was a two-minute bathroom break. I have no way to confirm the length of the absence from the photo or from what my team tells me. All I know is that the photo exists, it is real, and it shows my petition inexcusably unattended, unguarded, unwitnessed.
I have reminded my team that petitions are never to be left unattended.
I have directed my team to isolate all petition sheets circulated on Saturday, August 3. If any such sheets have blank lines, no more signatures are to be collected on those sheets.
I will review every signature and date on every one of those sheets. I will look for evidence that those signatures were properly witnessed or not.
And as I have always done, if the evidence indicates that any signatures were not witnessed or otherwise improperly secured, I will scratch and not submit those signatures on this petition to gain access for the People Power Initiative on the ballot.
And if that means I have to give up hundreds of signatures collected Saturday, so be it.
Petition integrity matters, always.
I have sent that message to my circulators in repeated guidance that advises them never to leave petitions unattended in public and always be present to witness every signature. I send that message again today. Circulators, our opponents (who, I hear, are stationed right across from us at the Sioux Empire Fair Expo building at the Rounds for Senate booth) are counting on us to make mistakes for which they can fry us. The public is counting on us to do our job right. Such are the high standards up to which we must live.
This is the key phrase: “Petition integrity matters, always.” Sorry, you can’t take a pee and leave them hanging around for anyone to sign/rip off/etc. You have to have a place where they are stowed away securely or take them along with you. I’m sure these circulators learned a lesson, but their petitions will be under intense scrutiny now. I think the signatures they have collected should not count, because they violated the law. You might want to ask those circulators not to collect any more signatures on your initiative. It’s harsh, but better that than have these folks and your petition under a legal cloud.
A responsible and honest attitude.
It’s worth noting that leaving petition sheets unattended, during which time signers might possibly sign without being witnessed by the circulator, has always been illegal. It has also routinely been ignored, and even opponents were not likely to report it.
In the petition campaigns I managed, it was common for several shifts of bartenders to circulate the same sheet to the customers they saw on their shift. Then, one bartender would sign off as having collected all the sigs. And that was one of the least offensive of several common practices 20 years ago.
Since the what’s her name Doctor Annette petition scandal of about six years ago, that will simply not fly any more.
What’s important is that petition campaigns can live with circulators telling the truth when they say they witnessed every signature. Petition campaigns can not live with the issues Cory and I (to the rather paltry extent I contribute to the effort) are trying to repeal with this ballot effort.
While presented as a way to keep out-of-state money out of SoDak issues, the actual result of the SoDak Taliban’s fascistic initiative/referendum laws is to insure that ONLY issues of interest to well-funded out-of-state will be presented to voters.
The effect of the SoDak Taliban’s laws is this: If you, a South Dakota voter take issue with a SoDak law (or the absence thereof), you will have to be a millionnaire to put it on the ballot, unless you can get some outastate commie/fascist to bankroll your petition drive.
#DontSignOnTheLine and keep these big dark-money out-of-state scoff-laws out of South Dakota. If they break laws at the Sioux Falls fair don’t you just bet your last breakfast sandwich they’ll be doubly desperate at the Central States Fair. People will be watching, and I hope there are not too many costumed characters signing all the petitions with fake names and addresses which are bogus.
Perhaps my good friend Bob and I will engage in an impromptu rant-fest in the tents, so stop on by!
More likely grudznuthin will be performing fellatio on somebody, while I am doing something worthwhille.
#SignOnEveryLine – “big, bogus, dark-money, out-of-state, scoff-laws?” Stop calling names, grudz.
~ Most current petition in Denver is to raise $46 million for an Office of Climate Action and Resiliency, by levying an excise tax on natural gas and electricity. This would make DenTown the first major city to levy a carbon tax. 💪 *Tough toenails, McTag.
– Millennials nationwide have been flocking to Colorado ever since Trump cheated to win and this issue is numero uno with them. Should get on the ballot easily as only 8,265 signatures are needed. That many young people move here, every month.
*SD is the most restrictive state for silencing the voice of people. Do something about it, huh?
PS … Pat Powers is a mean spirited man. Enough said.
https://www.westword.com/news/climate-activists-collecting-signatures-for-denver-carbon-tax-initiative-11353672
Keep that thing in your pants, Bob
You got nothing for me, no
Your sister knows how to dance
She might be more my speed, yeah
She moves just like a panther, baby
I’ll bet you never knew!
PeePee has never had the integrity to say something honest that can be used against him.
That stinks about the petitions Cory, but people trust you and sign your petitions because you do the right thing.
In the initiatives I worked on it was never allowed for anyone to have petitions hanging around in a place of business, and we never left petitions out without someone within a few feet of the petitions. It’s far too easy for mistakes to be made, petitions to get ripped off, etc. We always worried about saboteur circulators doing stuff like this, and then turning around and disqualifying thousands of signatures.
WTF has happened in SD that you can’t do the basics of signature gathering legally? It’s really inexcusable. This really pisses me off because all this improper signature collecting makes it awful goddam easy for the Republicans to justify putting more and more restrictions on. The sponsors had better get this figured out.
Amateur mistakes show why hiring petition professionals makes sense. Get an honest count and let the voter’s decide. A wise person pointed out,
“If you were having surgery in the morning, would you want a Dr. who’d done it or a Dr. who’d only talked about doing it?” – John Hickenlooper on climate reform.
I had someone write “f*&k off” on my cannabis handouts. I was standing right there, their backs were turned to me. I learned my lesson and I don’t leave them for anyone to see. Period.
Speaking of which, I have a completed petition to send you. All signatures witnessed.
Process matters, and I really wish I could get your attention on this. We still have time, but I think you’re committed at this point.
Regardless of what happens with PP and NASD, I hope you’ll take some time to meet with me about how to change the course of people participation in democracy in SD (for the better).
I feel like I’m the only one that gets it.
I disagree with Porter. Paid circulators don’t care about the issue, so they have no incentive to do things right.
The way we organized our petitioning efforts was to depend on grassroots citizens who had a stake in the issue. We didn’t look at our issues as a one off. We were going to be around in 2 or 4 years with another issue to petition. We kept active over decades. We had some long-term political strategy to what we were doing.
We used all the tools, not just the initiative. We made sure we were in Pierre working in the legislative system. We attended rule making hearings with state agencies. Even if you lose in Pierre, you gain credibility and friends. Every loss in the Legislature and at state agencies is motivation for citizen involvement in an initiative.
We built our group of citizen circulators up over a couple decades. Not everyone circulated every two years, but we took pride in learning from the expertise developed from the organizing work of United Family Farmers in the 1970s and 1980s and the initial environmental initiative by the Black Hills Energy Coalition efforts in 1979-1980, and carried that forward through the 1990s. What we learned was you need a core of grassroots circulators who know the issue and are concerned enough to do the circulating right. We made very few mistakes, and Secretary of State Alice Kundert would tell use we had the cleanest petitions she had ever seen.
Donald Pay – The times have changed with technology tools in full employment by state agencies to quash political dissent.
AI coupled with mass surveillance changed the course of human agency giving deep state actors the power to push agendas through the state with little/no recourse for the average citizen.
Anything making it through in contemporary times means it made it through the deep state gatekeepers who seek only the protection of entrenched legacy cash flows.
Technology is a force multiplier. It should be employed by everyone to level the playing field. But in my estimation, AI can’t hold a candle to an empowered human.
Even trips to Pierre cost money; travel, lodging, time off work. Compensating out of state paid circulators is not a good idea and you are correct about their disincentive.
That said, using technology we can virtualize much of of the work, reduce the risk, and optimize the efforts of smaller teams. Politics should never be a profit center, IMHO, but it should be used to create, streamline, and harvest economies of other kinds.
These are just some thoughts I had in response to your delightful post.
“Petition integrity matters, always.” Does it? Do you think non-resident SDs gathering signatures is on par with “integrity”? I certainly do not. Petition circulators pushing petitions in SD should be SD resident’s – period.
I disagree with Don Pay and he should know better. What’s the incentive for the people you find jobs for to be responsible, integral, effective, and efficient? It’s keeping the job, having pride in the job, and getting ahead, with a raise in pay. Paid petitioners are most likely retired men and women who’d rather work outside (setting their own schedules and paradigms) than greeting at Walmart. The issue means little because that’s what elections decide. Doing a good job matters most. Personalizing a petition as being about some political pipe dream sounds good, warm, and fuzzy but it’s just a job and professionals do a better job. Same with union workers, who incidentally become petitioners frequently.
I don’t think times have changed all that much, John. Pat Powers’ father was busy harassing circulators and signers of our nuclear waste vote initiative in 1984. Janklow was pushing hard for the nuclear dump, and he certainly had his minions trying to discredit us. The Legislature was full of one party hopeless ciphers, as it appears to be now.
Porter, you can’t build a movement if you don’t empower grassroots and voluntary efforts. You can’t do everything that needs to be done if you pay for what should be the citizens’ duty to do. This was never about just getting a measure on the ballot. It was about a long-term strategy of citizen involvement and empowerment, and never-ending vigilance on issues.
Don … you and Cory are salesmen who don’t know what you’re selling. In fact, studies have proven that the worst gatherers are the people who initiate the petition. They get too convoluted in their explanations to citizens, are looking too much “big picture”, and ignoring the job at hand. Signature gatherers are not selling the issue. That’s what the campaign is for. Gatherers are selling charisma, speed, and choices. When asked what the petition is about, the first answer is, “Like all petitions this one is about voter’s choices at the polls. The people deserve to have choices.” Gathering big amounts of petition signatures is sales not politics. It’s the gatherer’s job to get the issue on the ballot not to convince people to vote for it.
Donald Pay – “It was about a long-term strategy of citizen involvement and empowerment, and never-ending vigilance on issues”
I couldn’t agree more.
Porter,
We never had to do a lot of selling, actually. We never had trouble getting signatures. Our strategy was to involve a lot of people in a lot of pre-initiative work developing the issue over time. We were constantly in the news. I’d say three quarters of the state population knew about our initiatives before we hit the pavement.