On January 14, attorneys for groups that wish to circulate petitions on interior post office sidewalks filed this brief. The case is Initiative and Referendum Institute v United States Postal Service, 10-5337, in the U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit. This case is more than ten years old. The brief is only 20 pages and contains a clear summary of what has happened so far. The purpose of this brief is to persuade the U.S. Court of Appeals to allow full briefing and oral argument. This brief is a response to the post office’s earlier brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals, which argues that the case should be summarily dismissed.
Attached to the brief are pages from the transcript in front of the U.S. District Court in 2006, in which the U.S. District Court asked both sides to help create a survey of postmasters, to determine if interior postal sidewalks are indeed commonly used for First Amendment activity. Both sides worked together to do this survey, and it showed that, yes, interior postal sidewalks are commonly used for First Amendment activity. The results of this survey ought to be helpful to the people who challenged the postal ban on petitioning, because they show that interior post office sidewalks are a traditional public forum. However, the U.S. District Court Judge, who had himself suggested the survey, then sat on the case for four years and finally ruled in favor of the post office, in a ruling that belittled the survey evidence.
More obvious reforms —
File petitions and get a year-number on it.
3 x 5 cards — I want year-number stuff on the general election ballot. Signed John Doe.
and/or Electronic signatures on petitions.
Standing around trying to get signatures from busy folks is a bit OBSOLETE.
That last in particular seems a fair point. Everyone *does* seem to be busier nowadays — not only potential signers but also potential circulators. (Whence, I suppose, the rise of paid signature-gatherers . . . though not, I hope, of paid signers! ;] )
On the other hand, it’s often if not always easier to distribute petitions — especially if they can be done on letter-size paper (and I take it there is a slight trend in favor of that). And the same electronic interconnectedness of people and places and information at least sometimes makes it easier for petitioners to check their signatures against voter lists (or even recorded signatures, maybe).
So which way does the balance tip? Does anyone here know of any scholarly research/analysis that’s been done on how much harder (or, perhaps more to the point, how much more dependent on money) it is to succeed with a physical hard-copy petition drive in this day and age?