On February 16, U.S. District Court Judge John A. Woodcock, a Bush Jr. appointee, issued a 76-page order in We the People PAC v Bellows, 1:20cv-489. The order enjoins the Maine ban on out-of-state circulators for initiatives. It also enjoins the Maine law requiring initiative circulators to be registered voters.
The order is somewhat surprising, because the Maine State Supreme Court had twice upheld the same laws, in 1998 and again just last September. Also in 1999 a U.S. District Court in Maine had upheld the law. Furthermore, even Judge Woodcock himself had declined last month to issue a temporary restraining order against the restrictions.
The order explains that between last month and this month, the plaintiffs produced so much convincing evidence that it is clear the laws are a severe burden on free speech. The evidence included the point that there are only six Maine residents who make a living circulating petitions, while there are hundreds of them in the remainder of the U.S. The order also says that professional circulators are likely to make themselves available to Maine election authorities of there is any question about their work, because if they don’t, their professional reputation will suffer.
The order quotes former Secretary of State Matt Dunlap, speaking publicly and saying “It’s not normal, socially it’s not normal to walk up to perfect strangers and say, ‘excuse me are you a registered voter, would you like to sign this petition’ and so it takes a particular type of personality to be able to do this.’ It is this difficulty that drives groups to hire out-of-state professional circulators to gather signatures.” Thanks to Trent Pool for this news.
Hooray! Victory for our side! It is about time. I suggested to somebody in Maine that they file a lawsuit over this over 10 years ago.
A free market perspective on paid petitioning. I hope it holds up.
I suppose some people worry about evil “corporate interests” cramming the ballot with initiatives. But, what if they do? They are giving the people more real choices.
Ironic that non-residents of a state want to ban non-citizens from voting. Kind of hypocritical. So some non-residents who could actually be non-citizens are telling non-citizens who are actually residents they can’t vote. Weird.
REGARDLESS OF NATION-STATE MORONS — ESP IN SCOTUS –
EACH STATE IN THE USA IS A NATION-STATE —
1776 DOI LAST PARA
1777 ART CONFED
1783 USA-BRIT PEACE TREATY
1787 CONST – ESP ART VII – 9 STATES
NAME OF 1787 REGIME — UNITED ***STATES*** OF AMERICA
STATE ELECTIONS – INTERNAL GOVT STUFF — ALL OUTSIDE FOLKS – NONE OF YOUR BIZ – NOOO OUTSIDE VOTERS, CIRCULATORS, ETC.
SCOTUS SCREWUP OF 1 AMDT FOR DECADES.
—–
1 PERSON FORMS FOR PETITIONS – AKA PETS [FOR THE BAN RESIDENT TROLL MORON ESP].
The non-resident petition circulators are NOT voting on the issue, and they are NOT even signing the petition themselves, they are just asking other people who are citizens of Maine to sign it. This is merely a free speech activity, and going forward, this will apply to all initiative and referendum petitions in Maine. There was no ban on out-of-state people collecting signatures on candidate petitions in Maine, which shows how hypocritical the bad was.
It is my opinion that people who are not American citizens should not be able to vote in any government elections anywhere in the country, be it a city or town election, or a county election, or a state election, or a federal election. If they want vote in non-governmental elections, that is up to the non-governmental organization, but they should not be able to vote in any governmental election until they complete the naturalization process to become a citizen, which I would like to see made more difficult.
Giggity! Giggity! Good news!
Signatures on items having legal effects in a regime is a notary public action —
NOT quite like getting sigs for the GOAT football player.
In some states, the law does not even require the circulator to sign the petition at all. In those states, someone can leave a blank petition form on a bulletin board and it can collect signatures without any having “circulated”. I don’t see anything wrong with that.
Initiative and referendum petition signatures in Maine do have to be notarized. I am pretty sure candidate petition in Maine do not have to be notarized.
There really is no legitimate reason for requiring petitions to be notarized, and there are in fact plenty of states that do not require it.
Andy
I would agree with you and richard. Making a petition get notarized seems like needlessly creating an another step.
@andy the argument of the merits of the case is not at dispute. I was saying the circumstances of the cases are ironic. A judge may think the whole situation is concerning.
What a stupid name
@fact checker that is a stupid name. I thought about it and I think it is lame. Some stupid band. I will heretofore be known as Civil War.
That’s better