Secretary of State Jan Brewer has issued a broad warning to a ballot initiative committee whose hired signature petitioners are accused of dishonestly drumming up support for a redistricting proposition.
Brewer sent a letter to Ken Clark, chairman of Fair Districts, Fair Elections ballot initiative committee, after receiving several complaints that signature petitioners were telling voters the measure would lower gas prices.
In the text, she accused petitioners of engaging in a “blatant bait and switch tactic,” and urged that the “tools of deception and misrepresentation should be left in the shed” to protect the integrity of elections.
But Clark said the transgressions of two employees of Arizona Petition Partners, a contracted private company specializing in gathering necessary signatures to qualify initiatives for the ballot, were not as bad as Brewer suggests, but they have been fired anyway.
“They did not say, ‘Here’s something about fuel prices,’ and then hand them (voters) our petition,” said Clark, a Democrat who served in the Arizona House in 2003 and 2004. “What they did do was say, ‘Hey, do you want to sign something about fuel prices≠ And by the way, we also have this thing about a redistricting initiative.’ Even for that we fired them.”
The language of the proposed initiative addresses the drawing of competitive voting districts.
Brewer said her office has received several complaints over the last couple of weeks, and added that she learned her son thought he signed a ballot initiative petition to help lower gas prices. No such petition has been filed.
Clark: ‘Zero tolerance’ for misrepresentation
Clark will cooperate with Brewer’s instruction that he contact her office to present steps taken to eliminate what she referred to as “this unseemly campaign tactic,” but he is requesting the when, where and what happened details of the complaints filed with her office.
“I have zero tolerance for that activity,” he said. “The petition gathering process represents the best spirit of what we’re trying to do for Arizona.”
The secretary of state’s letter states, in one instance, a confronted signature gatherer finally admitted he was instructed by “superiors” to deceive voters after initially refusing to retreat from the gas price ruse.
Drew Chavez, owner of Arizona Petition Partners, said his firm does a good job of “policing itself,” and the fact that few complaints ever reach the Secretary of State’s Office testifies to that. He estimates he fired 10 to 15 signature gatherers last year for conveying false information to voters, even when it’s not intentional.
He said the non-binding gas price petition originated in California and was designed to lure voters to sign other “not very exciting” initiatives because of the state’s dramatically high number of required signatures to qualify initiatives for the ballot.
He said there is plenty of time to qualify for the 2008 ballot and that he has told contracted signature gatherers and clients he does not tolerate using schemes or bait and switch tactics.
“It’s not something we need to do here,” said Chavez, who has operated the firm for seven years. “We’re not in a mad rush. We want a slow steady pace of quality signatures.”
Consultant: You don’t win by misleading people
Valley political consultant Chuck Coughlin, president of HighGround, represented tobacco giant R.J. Reynolds in its attempt to allow further restrictions on smoking, though with the exceptions of bars and other establishments that sell alcohol for on-site consumption.
He said signature gatherers for the initiative, Prop. 206, were accused of misleading people in an effort to stop Prop. 201, a competing measure that ultimately banned smoking in most public places, including bars and restaurants.
Voters are ultimately responsible to understand what they support and vote for, but there is also no built-in incentive to engage in practices that jeopardize reputation, he said.
“I don’t know anybody in my industry that I associate with that would want to mislead people,” he said. “You don’t win a campaign by misleading people.”
Reports of signature gathering complaints related to the redistricting campaign have been filed with the Maricopa County Elections Department and have since been referred to the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, said department spokeswoman Yvonne Reed.