Four ballot initiatives asked the Arizona Supreme Court for permission to gather signatures online, given the current challenge to collect during COVID-19.

On March 30, Gov. Doug Ducey urged Arizonans to remain at home unless abiding by his definition of essential services, and the initiative groups argue that switching to online is “the right thing for public health and democracy.”

The initiatives involved are Smart and Safe Arizona, the effort to legalize recreational marijuana; Invest in Education, a measure that proposes to tax the rich to fund public education; Second Chances, Rehabilitation and Public Safety, which is intended to increase public safety and reduce recidivism; and Save Our Schools, which is trying to put a cap on the number of students who would have access to the state’s Empowerment Scholarship Accounts program, among other provisions.

Attorneys Roopali Desai and Andy Gaona are representing the initiatives, and their suit names Secretary of State Katie Hobbs as the defendant since she’s the one who is “statutorily responsible for the creation and maintenance of the ‘E-Qual’ secure online signature collection system at the heart of this action.”

The state already allows for candidates seeking statewide, legislative or federal office to collect signatures through E-Qual, where registered voters have to enter some of their personal information like their name, date of birth, driver’s license and last four digits of their Social Security number.

The biggest difference between initiative campaigns and candidates, outside of initiatives having three additional months to collect, is initiatives need to collect a minimum of 237,000 valid signatures to get on the 2020 ballot. Candidates only need a fraction
of that amount.

Currently, Smart and Safe is the only effort to collect more than enough, but the others haven’t had as much time. The marijuana legalization attempt began collecting in September, the rest started in early 2020.

The motion listed rough estimates of how many signatures each effort has collected so far and without allowing the switch to online, all but the weed initiative are likely doomed. Although Smart and Safe has passed the minimum threshold, those backers still want to cover the cushion. They’ve collected around 300,000 signatures.

Invest in Education has collected 85,000 signatures, which is the most of those remaining in the lawsuit. Second Chances collected 66,000 and Save Our Schools, the only effort to not pay any signature gatherers, has collected 50,000.

All are far from the 237,000 minimum and the 340,000 cushion measures try to aim for.

The [E-Qual] system instantly verifies the signature and could be easily expanded to include these initiative campaigns, which began collecting signatures before the recent stay-at-home order, the campaigns said in a press release.

The law currently says initiatives must collect with a pen and paper, which can be touched by at least 16 people – 15 signers and the circulator, they argue. That does not bode well for preventing the coronavirus spread.

Before this “emergency relief” petition, the campaigns were trying to collect in ways they found to be safe and legal, which included following social distance rules by dropping petition sheets at people’s doors and distancing themselves from potential signers who can use their own pens. This follows a clause in state statute that says the petition gatherer must be present to witness voters signing the sheet.

Initiatives have until July 2 to collect enough signatures.

Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to include rough estimates of signatures each effort has collected and that two other initiatives filed a similar motion with a federal court.