Andy Jacobs, a professional petition circulator, has been arrested for collecting signatures in front of a public library in Maryland. He was working on the Green Party’s ballot access petition at the time. See this story. Because the reporter talked to an American Civil Liberties Union staff attorney, it is obvious that the ACLU knows what happened to Jacobs. Hopefully, the ACLU will help him defend himself.
Ballot Access News
Edited By Richard Winger
Thanks for posting Richard. Obvious that the climate for conducting third party activities continues to be threatened. While unfortunate for Andy, incidents like these may get the public to begin to ask… just what is illegal about petitioning in the public?
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Gee – What was one factor in having 19 Apr 1775 happen in Mass ???
I was also working on a petition for the Libertarian Party.
More later.
This is not the first such case for Maryland. In 1982 two petitioners were arrested for “loitering” in Dundalk, MD. Andrew Pankin and Mark Ford were arrested while petitioning in a public area and also represented by the ACLU.
It was long ago, but perhaps Richard Winger has more detailed records of the event.
The fact that Andy is a Libertarian Party member and activist and that we were leading with the Libertarian Party Petition will be mentioned on http://www.independentpoliticalreport.com
– I will also provide a first hand account of Ms. Freedman ordering me to leave the library at Ellicott City as well. I’ll try to post the story today or tomorrow.
I’ll be scheduling an IPR blog talk radio show about this for some time this week. Not sure if Andy will be on the show yet.
Paulie
415-690-6352
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Pingback: IPR Blogtalk tomorrow (Wednesday): Brian Bittner, Andy Jacobs on Maryland ballot access petitioning and arrest | Independent Political Report
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Pingback: IPR blogtalk 1/24/10: Paulie, Andy Jacobs and Brian Bittner discuss harassment of petitioners and Andy’s arrest | Independent Political Report