Yesterday I wrote about potential fraud and intimidation from referendum 71 petition gatherers, particularly by Dan Ricca a migrant paid signature gatherer.  I wrote about election fraud in Orange County California and Oregon that Dan Ricca was closely involved with.  It turns out that was not the end of the story.  In Montanans for Justice vs the State of Montana, Ricca Petition Service (Dan Ricca’s company at the time) was accused of falsifying documents and using “bait and switch” techniques to gather signatures.  They allegedly told supporters they were signing petitions for one cause, but needed to sign several different pieces of paper because they needed “carbon copies”.  Consequently they signed petitions for issues they were not aware of and did not support.  According to Not in Montana, Ricca Petition Services was paid over $51,552.00 to gather signatures for three separate issues in Montana in 2006.

Because reports of fraud were so pervasive during Montana’s 2006 initiative process, District Court Judge Sandefur invalidated every signature obtained by paid petition gatherers:

(1) the 2006 signature gathering process under Title 13,
Chapter, 27, MCA, for CI-97, CI-98, and I-154 is
permeated by a pervasive and general pattern and
practice of fraud and procedural non-compliance
perpetrated by paid, out of state, migrant signature
gatherers commissioned by Proponents;

(2) all signatures gathered by out of state signature
gatherers King, Schumacher, Cook, and Meyer, together
with all signatures gathered by the 40 other out of
state signature gatherers listed on Plaintiff’s Exhibit
5, are hereby invalidated; and

(3) as result of this invalidation, the Secretary of State’s
certified and final counts, referenced in Figure 1 are
hereby invalidated; and

(4) consequently, the Secretary of State’s certifications of
CI 97, CI-98, and I-154 pursuant to §§ 13-27-307, 13-27-
308, 13-27-311, and 13-27-312, MCA, are hereby
invalidated.

SO ORDERED this 13th day of September, 2006.

Ricca used the same “carbon copy” scam in Oregon in 2002.  According to a voter alert issued by Northwest Labor Press:

In another incident in Salem, Heather Bowman, 17, was approached in January by a circulator named Daniel Ricca. Bowman says she wasn’t interested in his initiative which, she recalls, had something to do with taxes. She reports that Ricca was so aggressive she finally relented and stopped. When he learned she was too young to be a registered voter, Bowman says, the circulator handed her a voter registration card and told her he could turn it in for her because she would be 18 before the primary election in May. Then he had her sign his “tax measure” 20 different times. But she now suspects she signed 20 different initiative petitions or possibly duplicates of some petitions.

“He lied to me,” says Bowman. “He told me that he needed carbon copies of all the petitions to send to supporters of the initiative. I didn’t know any better at the time and now I don’t know what I signed.”

Dan Ricca is certainly not the only paid petition gatherer in Washington during these final days of the referendum 71 campaign. His colleagues are out there and many are using deceptive techniques.  Reports have come in that people are being told by signing the referendum 71 petition they are signing a pro gay marriage petition, for example. Others are confronted by aggressive intimidation tactics.

I have two questions for you.  1) Why do we allow paid petition gatherers to collect signatures? 2) Would you trust any of these questionable characters with your personal information? It is too late to change the law for referendum 71, but Olympia should make changes during their next session to prevent this from happening in the future.  At the very least, I hope this information reaches the right person before they sign referendum 71.

Despite the questionable techniques of paid petition gatherers, our opponents continue to claim the moral high ground.   Today in Gary Randell‘s blog, he wrote:

Your efforts, in many cases, have been above and beyond what most would do. We know this is a spiritual matter, not a political one for those who are involved.

Apparently Gary thinks fraud and intimidation are holy.  I wonder if Randell thinks God would approve of hiring petition gatherers that are so intimidating they bring children to tears as Ricca did to an 8 year old named Allison in Lewis County on Sunday. I wonder…