PD Editorial: Bogus signatures undermine bid to help kids

The discovery of what may be forged or fraudulent signatures on initiative petitions sidetracked a yearslong effort to enhance child care and children’s health programs in Sonoma County.

It’s a stunning setback for Our Kids Our Future, a campaign to pass a quarter-cent sales tax endorsed by a who’s who of local political figures and community organizations.

Their initiative appeared to be a lock for the Nov. 8 ballot when they turned in 29,686 signatures last month — far more than the 21,038 valid signatures they needed to qualify for a vote. However, when county election officials compared the petitions with voter registration records, more than 10,000 signatures did not match.

Each petition has 26 lines for signers. On some, every signature was rejected.

Among the giveaways: voters misspelling their own names.

“It appears likely they’re fraudulent,” said Sonoma County voter registrar Deva Marie Proto, who is turning the matter over to the district attorney and the secretary of state for investigation.

If there is anything positive to be found in this disgraceful situation, it is further evidence that Sonoma County elections are safe and secure. The same process is used to verify signatures on initiatives petitions and mail-in ballots, which have additional layers of security such as individual bar codes.

Proto did not identify those responsible for the suspect signatures, but campaign organizers believe they came from Total Signers, a company hired to help with the signature-gathering drive.

Ballot initiatives are big business in California. Those earnest young people juggling an armload of clipboards outside the supermarket usually aren’t volunteers. They are generally getting paid by the signature.

For the Our Kids initiative, payments ranged from $6-$9 a signature. In the unsuccessful effort to recall District Attorney Jill Ravitch last year, circulators were reportedly paid as much as $10 per signature.

Bounties often get larger as deadlines to turn in signatures get closure. Not surprisingly, fraud cases aren’t unprecedented.

In 1998, four people were convicted after turning in about 800 forged signatures in what was described at the time as the largest voter fraud case in Sonoma County history.

Four years ago, nine people were charged with offering cigarettes or dollar bills to homeless people in Los Angeles in exchange for signing fake names on initiative petitions.

California requires a disclosure statement on petitions if the circulator is getting paid, but few people are aware of that and fewer still study the fine print of initiative petitions.

As governor, Jerry Brown twice vetoed legislation to prohibit per-signature payments for circulators, saying hourly wages would drive up the cost of initiative campaigns. The initiative process was created as a check on big money politics, but it was long ago co-opted by special interests with deep enough pockets to cover campaign costs. We urge lawmakers to revisit this issue.

Meanwhile, the Our Kids initiative could ask the Board of Supervisors to put it on the ballot, but that would raise the threshold for voter approval from a simple majority to two-thirds. Or they could start over with a new petition and hope for a better outcome in 2024.

What shouldn’t get lost in this is Sonoma County’s child care needs. The system was already overburdened before 1 in 5 operators closed during the coronavirus pandemic. Access to safe, affordable child care is vital for parents and employers alike. But with the bogus signatures, a grim situation just got grimmer.

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