During the early summer of 2011, the Americans Elect web page posted a new national signature count for its various statewide petitions every week. This national total represented the sum of how many signatures had been collected around the nation on its various state petitions. But the July 28 posting of 1,747,557 had not been increased since then, during August. But on August 30 the web page showed a new national total, 1,755,707, an increase of only 8,150 signatures during August.
That isn’t very many signatures but it could continue to be low if Arno & Breslin do not stop being so greedy. It is my understanding that they are pocketing about 75% for themselves! Jusr how long will petitioners put up with this plantation attitude???????
Uh oh, looks like the AE machine might be having some technical difficulties…If only Arno will learn that pocketing mucho moola for himself isn’t how you get political change to occur.
Uh, do you think it just might have to do with them being finished collecting signatures in California?
Which is where all those large weekly increases were coming from.
I don’t know the exact dates, but they’ve stopped in California which is where 95% of the signatures came from.
I think AE has started petitioning in Arkansas, so this must mean that they aren’t getting much support over there if most of the signatures are coming from the Golden State.
Signatures are still being collected in California. Do you think dropping the pay to $1 has anything to do with the low numbers being turned in?
It is my understanding that AR has not started. Have started in AL with LOW pay – then on to GA with LOW pay!! Then to the next state with LOW pay!
AR is only 1,000 valid. Alabama and Georgia are paying garbage on the street. They found some desperate addicts to go, but I’m gonna guess the production sucks, especially with the heat and humidity and the lack of access. In Alabama they are also screwing themselves due to the form they are using, but that is all I will say on that at this time.
The rate they are paying in CA given how burnt out it is is beyond insulting. I am not one to be a hater, but there is a point where greed becomes self-defeating, and in my estimation the Arnos and some of their subs have passed that point.
Who says signatures are still being collected in California?
My understanding is that all signatures were turned in at the end of July and are being counted/verified by the Sec. of State’s office.
Is that correct? IF so, then AE will have dramatically fewer signatures from here onward
Breslin hotline. Listen to it!
Many other hotlines as well, at least in SoCal
Some states have low signature requirements (Iowa, for example, only requires 1500 signatures). Also, it is important to note that some states do not allow signatures to start to be collected until 01-01-12.
With their funding, I doubt they will have any problem getting on the ballot nationwide.
These petition cos & coordinators have NO respect for the people doing the work & it is getting worse! WA, CA, AL, CO, MA, KS, MI, AR, etc., etc. And, then you have petition cos & coordinators who don’t pay & who overcharge for expenses. When are petitioners going to say “enough is enough?”
“Hotlines”…
How about a single article that says signatures are still being collected in California.
I live in Northern California. No one is collecting Americans Elect signatures.
They were all turned in here.
The companies that are paying for signatures in southern Cali say that they are still paying for them, although only a buck, and their checks say that they are still paying (at that low rate). I will trust that over newspaper articles.
There are still a few southern California counties where the Americans Elect petition hasn’t been turned in yet.
There is a actual deadline.
Does anyone know that date by which they need to have been turned in?
The reason the pay has dropped to a buck is most likely that the AE signature is only a “add-on” signature, when the gatherer already has gotten the Amazon signature.
I doubt anyone is out there directly pushing the AE petition.
As I said before, I’ve never seen a person signing or gathering the AE petition who fully understood what it was, or who was capable of explaining it.
Can anybody provide any recent *credible* evidence for anything they’ve said here? It’s getting to be a bit confusing (AE turned in CA sigs vs. AE is still collecting sigs in CA, AE has started in AR, AL, the deadline, etc.)
Amazon petition has been off for the last two weeks. It may or may not be back.
There is some controversy over the correct deadline for AE. It may be in September, or it may have already passed.
Add-on signature or not, at a buck it is not worth even taking the time to try to push.
LV,
AE has turned in some signatures in CA and now they are down to only working some counties, but they are high population counties. The evidence is simple; the regional petition subcontractors maintain hotlines for petitioners which they regularly update with which petitions are starting and ending, price changes, and similar information. These hotlines say that they are currently paying for AE. Since they are the people who are paying, and since the people gathering the signatures rely on them for information on when to stop or start, they would be the most reliable source possible for this information.
Del, if you have doubts about the validity of comments made here
why don’t you talk to some of the petitioners? And, you can go online to check deadlines. Add-on petition? Add-on to what – a .70 petition. Are you a coordinator?
No, Del was talking about the 3.00 Amazon referendum. Apparently Del is not aware that it is either over and has been suspended, and that people are still waiting on their pay…
I was unaware that Amazon had discontinued collecting in the past couple weeks.
It was my understanding that in NorCal that AE had stopped some time back.
$1.00 is worth more than .70 if you’ve got someone willing to go right down the list and sign anything.
The good side of the lower pay is that if the trend continues, soon signature gatherers won’t be required to confess to the public in California that they are being “paid”.
Paid inadequately is still paid. People that are haters about the fact that we have to make a living don’t care if we eat dog food and sleep in garbage cans, they will still hate if we make a penny. Meanwhile, the politicians, lobbyists, advertisers, editors, and everyone else connected to influencing opinions and laws gets paid and no one gets worked up about that. Do they think that their kids’ teachers, their ministers and rabbis, etc are insincere or don’t care about their jobs because they happen to make a living at it? Are professional firefighters less reliable than volunteer firefighters? The whole thing is ridiculous.
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Americans Elect is definitely still paying in California. A California petition coordinator told me this in person 2 days ago. I told them that I did not want to work on it even though there are two other state wide petitions to go along with it because Americans Elect is super burned out (as in a hell of a lot of people have already signed it) – and note that it was never that popular a petition to begin with – and it is grossly underpaying.
#16 There is no hard deadline. A party simply qualifies for the “next” primary. To be sure that they qualify for the June 2012 primary, they need to be filed by September 16, 2011. This allows all the procedural steps, including a possible 100% signature check to be completed. A party must qualify 135 days before the primary to participate in the primary.
For an ordinary initiative, there is a 150-day circulation period. Though the initiative law governs the handling of this petition, it doesn’t appear that there is a limited period of circulation.
Petitions are filed in each county, and all petitions in a county must be filed on the same day, with no supplemental petitions in that county. Counties are required to make a raw signature count within 8 days, and report that to the SOS. That is the first official notification that the SOS has of any petitions being filed.
Once it appears to the SOS that there are sufficient raw signatures to theoretically qualify a measure, the SOS orders the counties to do a sample signature check. If the sample indicates between 95% and 110% of the number of valid signatures, then a 100% signature check is done. If the sample projects to less than 95%, the petition fails; if more than 110% it succeeds.
Not only is it still in circulation, word has it they are still short. Arno’s reports to nhis managers include a high charge back rate with chimerical justifications.I was unaware the pay had dropped to a buck,but htis supports my theory that Arno has spent his budget and just recently found out how bad his first batches actually were. Keep in mind, it is not in dispute that his program did not work for the first two months. The tone of his emails indicates fear. I wonder if now would be the time for his direct vendors to hold the final turn ins until they are paid. Everyone has seen their profit margins evaporate in the last three weeks while arno does his usual routine of after he fact chargebacks.