Pubdate: Fri, 09 Jun 2000
Source: News.Com (US Web)
Copyright: 1995-2000 CNET Networks, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.news.com/
Author: Brian Livingston
Cited: Reasonable People's Campaign: http://reasonablepeople.org/

NET SIGNATURE DRIVE WOULD SET PRECEDENT

An initiative signature drive launched this week in Washington state is the 
first in the nation to distribute petition forms entirely via the 
Internet--and state officials would set a precedent if they accept the 
petitions.

The initiative, sponsored by the Reasonable People's Campaign, would change 
state law so people found guilty of possession (as opposed to manufacture 
or sale) of any illegal drug could be sentenced to a treatment program but 
not prison. Possession of less than 40 grams (1.4 ounces) of marijuana 
would be a minor infraction punishable only by a fine.

The petition needs more than 180,000 valid signatures to qualify for the 
ballot.

It's the first time anyone has tried to use the Internet as the sole source 
of the petitions, political watchers say.

"This is actually the first I've heard of it, but it makes a lot of sense," 
says Amy Pritchard, president of the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, a 
nonprofit organization that tracks citizens' initiatives in the United States.

Supporters are asked to print petitions on their printers, add signatures, 
and then physically return the signed petitions by snail mail. This 
procedure does require handwritten signatures and should not be confused 
with digital signatures, a form of electronic communications that uses 
unique code numbers.

The organization's Web site has a step-by-step procedure describing how to 
print the petitions. Two separate documents must be printed using Adobe 
Acrobat software. To meet state requirements, the signature page must be 
printed back-to-back with a page containing the full text of the initiative.

Unfortunately for the campaign, state law says petitions must be printed on 
large, 11-by-14-inch sheets. Most computer users can print only on 
8-by-11-inch paper.

Citing U.S. Supreme Court decisions that enhanced signature-gathering 
rights, the campaign has asked the Washington secretary of state to allow 
the Internet petitions as an exception to the paper size rule.

Assistant secretary of state Don Whiting refused to say whether his 
department would accept them: "You can never say that ahead of time."

The deadline to submit signatures for this November's election is July 7. 
This gives the Reasonable People campaign a period of only one month to 
gather signatures after they launched their petitions on June 5. Since most 
signature drives take advantage of the full six-month period the state 
allows, you might wonder what the leaders of I-746 have been smoking.

Campaign manager Robert Lunday has a long-term view, however. He says the 
names and addresses of this year's signers can legally be used to mail them 
a new set of petitions next year, if the campaign does not meet its July 7 
target.

"We also wanted especially to press the envelope with Internet petitions 
this year," Lunday said, before relying upon the method next year.

To distribute the petitions, the campaign does not plan to spam unrelated 
email recipients. Instead, instructions will be inserted into existing 
email bulletins that co-sponsoring organizations already send out to their 
members.

Reasonable People has also contracted with Aristotle Online to create 
banner ads that will be targeted at Web users statewide. Aristotle gained 
notice recently for its work on Internet advertising that helped fill Sen. 
John McCain's war chest in his recent Presidential primary campaign.

If Reasonable People's efforts are successful in gathering signatures 
inexpensively, a new cottage industry of e-businesses could spring up. 
Consulting firms that currently charge citizens' groups $1 per name to 
employ paid signature gatherers might switch to less costly Internet-based 
distribution.

As a result, more initiatives might appear on the ballot in the 24 states 
that permit them. The ballots might be longer to wade through--but some 
measures that might never raise a multi-million dollar budget will come 
before the voters anyway. And that's "grass" roots democracy.
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake