For Immediate Release
Contacts:
Kim Burningham (801) 292-9261
Alan Smith (801) 521-3321
David Irvine (801) 949-6693
UEG REQUESTS IMMEDIATE APPROVAL OF E-SIGNATURES GATHERED FOR ITS INITIATIVE PETITION
In a letter hand-delivered today to Utah Lt. Governor, Greg Bell (copy below), Utahns for Ethical Government requested that Bell's office act immediately to reverse its earlier directive to county clerks that they should refuse to accept e-signatures submitted by UEG to qualify its legislative ethics initiative for ballot placement. UEG had collected approximately 10,000 such signatures as of April 15th, and will renew its online signature collection in light of yesterday's Utah Supreme Court ruling in Anderson v. Bell.
The UEG letter asks for written confirmation not later than June 28th that instructions will issue by June 30th to the county clerks, directing them to disregard the Lt. Governor's earlier instructions, and consistent with the reasoning of the Utah Supreme Court in Anderson v. Bell, to accept initiative e-signatures. The letter further requests confirmation that, once signatures are validated by the clerks as belonging to registered voters, the e-signatures, along with paper signatures, will be counted by the Lieutenant Governor toward the statutory qualification requirement.
UEG's letter further stated that if the Lieutenant Governor declines to provide the written confirmation UEG is requesting by June 28th, the group will seek immediate legal redress.
Kim Burningham, UEG's Chair, said, "The objections made by the Lieutenant Governor to the use of e-signatures by Farley Anderson's petition to be a candidate are the identical objections that office has made to the use of e-signatures on initiative petitions. The Supreme Court very clearly held that all of those objections were without merit and that electronic signatures are valid under the election code."
Applying the Anderson ruling to ballot initiatives, the UEG letter states, "the reasoning of the court's opinion surely governs, and probably controls, any determination of those issues.
Burningham noted that the group is continuing to gather signatures for submission by an August 12th deadline to qualify the petition for the 2012 general election, and that the online signature option is expected to be reinstalled within a week as an active feature of UEG's website: www.utahnsforethicalgovernment.org. He also said, "While the Court's approval of e-signatures is extremely helpful, UEG will continue its very heavy focus on paper signature gathering. Face-to-face petitioning is really the only effective way we can ensure that we target our work to collect the necessary signatures by senate districts, and that effort is critical."
Burningham also said, "We get mixed signals from the Lieutenant Governor's office about the Anderson ruling. On one hand, Mr. Bell says that the office will quickly conform to the intent and spirit of the Court's decision. On the other, his chief of staff says the office is 'disappointed in the ruling,' and Mr. Neuenschwander suggests that he might wait for further legislative direction before deciding how to treat our signatures."
"The Supreme Court has ruled that the legislature has already made the law on e-signatures incontrovertibly clear - they are valid under the election code - and we see any further dithering over them as a very pointed effort to undermine the opportunity of voters to conveniently and easily - and securely - take advantage of the technology the legislature has already approved for virtually every other business or governmental transaction except writing a will. We are calling on Mr. Bell to act quickly, and we hope he will match actions to words. But we cannot keep faith with our thousands of supporters and allow bureaucratic niggling to further jeopardize our success. If we have to go back to court, we intend to do so quickly."
