A federal judge late Friday tossed out a bid to allow initiative organizers to get the signatures they need through an online portal.

Anthony Garcia, a veteran signature gatherer, said the lucrative business of circulating petitions helped him stay out of jail.

Elections officials said they will likely refer several campaigns that have been implicated for fraud and forgery to law enforcement for further investigation.

Clifford Curry seems really good at his job. He collected hundreds of signatures for candidates. But no one knows who Curry is.

The firm that helped collect signatures to get a minimum wage initiative on the November ballot has sued the initiative committee, claiming its owed tens of thousands of dollars in unpaid wages for its efforts.

Activists hoping to convince voters to legalize marijuana in Arizona have begun collecting signatures to send the issue to the ballot in 2016.

Organizers of a grassroots conservative effort to refer Gov. Jan Brewer’s Medicaid expansion plan to the ballot are keeping quiet about their progress as they prepare for the final month of their signature-gathering efforts.

One political consultant aligned with the Medicaid expansion effort said there may be a way for expansion proponents to throw up some roadblocks to the referendum effort by marginalizing the groups that organize signature-gathering efforts. There are only a handful of firms in Arizona that specialize in gathering signatures, and the source said it is theoretically possible to sideline them on the referendum if expansion proponents bring them on to the payroll.