NYC Ballot Initiative Update

Drs_Res said:
What happens, by law, if some of those signatures are from people who move out of New York to another part of the country before the 2008 elections and register in their new state of residence?
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Generally petitions are only valid for 1 voting cycle. If they try to drag this to 2009 any signature collected before Nov. 08 would have to be reverified.

Bottom line, If it's not done very soon they need to rip it up and start over.
 
jhunter1163 said:
At this point, I'd call it an ordinary, dog-missing-jump-through-tire fail. If they miss for '09, it'll be a shipload-of-containers-crashing fail.
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If they miss '09 (100% chance), then they'll just push it back to '10...and so on and so forth until they get the required number of signatures...at which point a large number of the signatures they do have will no longer be valid and they'll have to start all over again. They're not doing this because they want a new investigation, they're just doing this so that when people criticize them they can say "we just want a new investigation". (A la Jones & his "journal")
 
How are they ensuring that the signators are residents? Are they checking IDs, and does the signer have to put their address on the petition?

I once signed a petition "Sam Francisco" and I have the CA ID to prove that's my name. It was a giveaway at the premiere of Alien Nation, all I had to do was put my thumb over the picture of Mandy Patinkin. BTW I also have a wanted poster for "Rudyard Kipling," from the same premiere.
 
If I understand correctly, and any NYC resident can feel free to jump in and correct me, the signatories must have voted in the last municipal election. So after every election a significant percentage of the signatures would be invalidated because the signers didn't vote.

So, to my mind, doing anything now is a waste of time since they're too late for 2008. They should marshal their resources for a drive for 2009. Of course, that's assuming 1) that they have any resources to marshal and 2) their organization could survive three months of inactivity.
 
jhunter1163 said:
If I understand correctly, and any NYC resident can feel free to jump in and correct me, the signatories must have voted in the last municipal election. So after every election a significant percentage of the signatures would be invalidated because the signers didn't vote.
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The signatories didn't have to vote in the last general election, they just had to be registered to vote at that time (in this case November 6, 2007).

All of the signatures gathered now will be invalid on November 5, 2008 because there will be no way to determine who was registered on vote by November 4, 2008.
 
You're welcome jhunter. :)

What I find particularly loathsome about Jamison & Co. is their blatant lies, such as the claim that their proposed commissioners are impartial regarding 9/11. Why aren't potential signers told of the questionable company this group associates with?

Parky is right, we don't need people like this in our city
 
That's interesting, Alt-F4. A couple months ago in one of the previous threads I and a few others tried to figure out whether or not the signatures would stay valid into the following year (along with other issue regarding the exact deadlines etc.), based on the provisions of the New York state law governing ballot initiatives. I couldn't find any definitive statements about signatures expiring, either in the laws themselves or in court cases. My supposition then was that the expiration of signatures would be due to the specifics of the bureaucratic procedure rather than any definitive statement of law -- more or less agreeing with what you're saying. Which makes it likely to be challenged in court if it does become an issue in this case.

Or is there a more definitive source that I missed, that lays it out clearly? I'd like to see a reference for this if you have one, not because I doubt it -- I had already come to the conclusion that it was probably the case -- but to be able to cite it if challenged on that point.

Respectfully,
Myriad
 
This was supposedly posted over at 9-11 Flogger, but it's down for now; here's the post at Truth Action.

Petitioners for the NYC 9/11 Ballot Initiative have now gathered in excess of 27,000 signatures of NY City registered voters who are in favor of the creation of a new, independent investigation into the 9/11 attacks.

However, since a minimum of 30,000 valid signatures is required plus an extra margin of several thousand is recommended, it appears that time has run out to meet the Sept. 4th deadline for getting this public referendum onto the Nov. 2008 ballot.

Although this is a great disappointment to the dozens of dedicated people working on the Initiative, they have also accepted that it may be a blessing in disguise. The presidential race would have drawn so much media attention as to overshadow this effort to establish a new, independent, and impartial “truth commission”.
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Heheh, the Truthers must be getting a little sick of these blessings in disguise. They'd love for the blessing to come just once without the mask of failure.
 
Myriad said:
I couldn't find any definitive statements about signatures expiring, either in the laws themselves or in court cases. My supposition then was that the expiration of signatures would be due to the specifics of the bureaucratic procedure rather than any definitive statement of law -- more or less agreeing with what you're saying. Which makes it likely to be challenged in court if it does become an issue in this case.

Or is there a more definitive source that I missed, that lays it out clearly? I'd like to see a reference for this if you have one, not because I doubt it -- I had already come to the conclusion that it was probably the case -- but to be able to cite it if challenged on that point.

Respectfully,
Myriad
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The petition itself is based on chapter 37 of the New York Municipal Home Rule Law, which states:
New York Municipal Home Rule Law said:
Provisions for adoption of city charter amendments or new citycharters initiated by petition. 1. A local law amending a city charter(however extensively) or providing a new city charter, also may beadopted in accordance with the provisions of this section. 2. Qualified electors of a city, in number equal to at least ten percentum of the total number of valid votes cast for governor in such cityat the last gubernatorial election, or to thirty thousand, whichever isless, may file in the office of the city clerk a petition for thesubmission to the electors of the city of such a proposed local law tobe set forth in full in the petition. Qualified electors shall be deemedfor this purpose to be voters of the city who were registered andqualified to vote in such city at the last general election precedingthe filing of the petition.
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(bolding mine)

It is my understanding that the signatures they collected in 2008 were based on the last general election which was November 6, 2007. The next general election is on November 4, 2008, making the signatures they collected invalid because they no longer apply to the last general election.


Linky: http://www.celdf.org/NewYorkMunicipalHomeRuleLaw/tabid/294/Default.aspx
 
Alt+F4 said:
It is my understanding that the signatures they collected in 2008 were based on the last general election which was November 6, 2007. The next general election is on November 4, 2008, making the signatures they collected invalid because they no longer apply to the last general election.


Linky: http://www.celdf.org/NewYorkMunicipalHomeRuleLaw/tabid/294/Default.aspx
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I think the principal question is, "What if a valid signer votes in the upcoming general election, and remains eligible to sign?" The law seems unclear on this point, in my non-expert opinion.

BTW, this merited an entry in one of National Review's blogs last week. Money quote: "Does Team Obama need one-third of the "Republicans For Obama" [Lincoln Chafee] giving off a whiff of Truther?" :popcorn1
 
SpitfireIX said:
I think the principal question is, "What if a valid signer votes in the upcoming general election, and remains eligible to sign?" The law seems unclear on this point, in my non-expert opinion.
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I agree, the law seems unclear, but the petition isn't, it asks signers if they are qualified voters, but it doesn't define what a qualified voter is under the law. The City Council can throw out all the signatures on the grounds that there is no evidence that any of these persons was registered to vote in the last general election.
 
Alt+F4 said:
The petition itself is based on chapter 37 of the New York Municipal Home Rule Law, which states:

(bolding mine)

It is my understanding that the signatures they collected in 2008 were based on the last general election which was November 6, 2007. The next general election is on November 4, 2008, making the signatures they collected invalid because they no longer apply to the last general election.

Linky: http://www.celdf.org/NewYorkMunicipalHomeRuleLaw/tabid/294/Default.aspx
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Yeah, that language is what I was looking at before. But it refers to the elector's status relative to when the peition is filed. not when it was signed by the elector.

Voter registration records are based on name and address, and name and address is how signers identify themselves when signing the petition. So the verification procedure is most likely checking the names and addresses on the petition against the most recent complete voter registration records -- that is, the ones used for the most recent past election.

This would mean that if the signer changed addresses, the signature would no longer be valid the following year because the registered voter list would no longer show that name at the address filled in on the petition. But signatures just expiring based on the date the petition is signed is not mentioned in the specific law cited. There might be a more general law that's applicable, or court precedent resolving the issue, though I haven't seen any. But it might also be currently undetermined, or determined by arbitrary bureaucratic procedure, in which case it would have to be resolved in the courts if the filers complain about the legality of the procedure.

It's easy to imagine possible (albeit unlikely) abuses that would illustrate the principle that petition signatures should expire. What if someone filed a petition that had been signed a decade ago by thousands of schoolchildren, many of whom would then have become qualified electors by the time of the filing? I would guess that in such a case, the city council would notice the years-old signatures, refuse to accept them, and defend their decision in court if the filers sued over it. The published laws don't cover every detail; that's one reason the courts are so busy.

Respectfully,
Myriad
 
Alt+F4 said:
It is my understanding that the signatures they collected in 2008 were based on the last general election which was November 6, 2007. The next general election is on November 4, 2008, making the signatures they collected invalid because they no longer apply to the last general election.
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I read it differently. The section sets out the relevant time (my bolding)
§ 37. Provisions for adoption of city charter amendments or new city
charters initiated by petition. 1. A local law amending a city charter
(however extensively) or providing a new city charter, also may be
adopted in accordance with the provisions of this section.
2. Qualified electors of a city, in number equal to at least ten per
centum of the total number of valid votes cast for governor in such city
at the last gubernatorial election, or to thirty thousand, whichever is
less, may file in the office of the city clerk a petition for the
submission to the electors of the city of such a proposed local law to
be set forth in full in the petition. Qualified electors shall be deemed
for this purpose to be voters of the city who were registered and
qualified to vote in such city at the last general election preceding
the filing of the petition.
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I read this to mean that the authentication process would involve checking to see if the signatory was a registered, eligible voter in the last general election that took place prior to the submission of the petition, regardless of when the signature was actually collected. I note from looking at the petition itself that the signatures are undated, and I can imagine that some petitions could take more than one election cycle to collect the necessary signatures.

In addition, the section makes no mention of, and places no limitation on, the collection dates of the signatures for purposes of determining whether a signatory is a "qualified elector".

Rather it has defined a process by which "qualified electors" will be "deemed" as such.

So, assuming that the twoofers get the requisite number of signatures and submit the petition next year, I would think that the signatories would be deemed "qualified electors" so long as at the time of the filing of the petition, they remained registered and eligible voters in the 2008 general election.
 
Myriad said:
Yeah, that language is what I was looking at before. But it refers to the elector's status relative to when the peition is filed. not when it was signed by the elector.
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Thanks for the observation. Assuming they will file this sometime in 2009 the signer's status would be relative to the November 4, 2008 election. I would think any signatures collected prior to this date would be invalid since the signer is stating that they were qualified as of the 2007 election, not 2008.

I agree that the City Council would match the names and addresses on the petition against voter registration records. The longer they wait to file the petition the more signatures will be rejected as people die, move out of the city or to another part of the city and don't re-register.

I also agree with Johnnyclueless, these people have already been exposed as liars, no way they have 27,000 vaild signatures.
 
LashL said:
I note from looking at the petition itself that the signatures are undated.
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Take another look. I definitely saw a space for the date for both the signer and the witness.
 
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