Hear
ye, autographs are for sale by the dozens
Niki Payne
Do you ever miss seeing those petitioners on campus calling out to you, “Are
you registered to
vote?” I hate hearing that question because I already know what they are
after: my lovely autograph.
I don’t know about the rest of the student body, but I am quite fed up
with these petitioners asking me if I’m registered to vote.
Petitioners don’t really care. If I say yes, they want me to sign some
petition. If I say no, they want me to register to vote and still sign some petition.
But do you ever read what you’re signing? Most of the time, we just trust
whatever the petitioner said it was and sign.
Other times, not even the petitioners know much about the initiative they are
getting signatures for.
Truth be told, we college students on the go don’t have time to read the
fine print. For all we know, we could be signing our life away.
In a quest to discover how these petitioners are reimbursed for standing around
soliciting to college students on the go, I contacted the Los Angeles County
Registrar’s Elections Office, where I was informed they actually have nothing
to do with the petitioners. They simply verify all the signatures obtained, making
sure they are good and legit signatures. What are all these signatures for though?
According to the office, these petitioners work for political parties and therefore
have no affiliation with the elections office other than turning in the signatures
for verification. Some petitioners are advocates for activist groups while others
volunteer for the political party they represent. Then, of course, there are
those student petitioners looking to make a little extra cash. The purpose of
these signatures is to get proposed initiatives on the ballot in time for elections
so voters can decide on them.
I wasn’t satisfied. Determined to discover how these petitioners are reimbursed,
I tried contacting the California Secretary of State a few times, figuring surely
I would get the information I was looking for.
After a dozen transfers, the last to Media Relations, I finally reached Press
Assistant for the Secretary of State Allie Schembra. She told me “proponents
of measures hire volunteers or companies” to obtain the signatures needed
for an initiative to be placed on the ballot. Schembra also said they had nothing
to do with the petitioners.
Great. Tell me something I don’t know. Realizing I was pretty stuck, Schembra
told me I would have to contact proponents of current initiatives circulating
for further questions.
I felt lost. Does no one know anything about these petitioners? All I’m
getting is, “We actually have nothing to do with the petitions.”
So I took the route Schembra recommended. She notified me of the most recent
initiative currently circulating to increase the minimum wage in California.
The proponent of this measure is Thomas Hiltachk.
Unfortunately, to add to my increasing bad luck with state officials, his receptionist
said Hiltachk was on vacation and not due back until today. I left a message
with his associate Jimmy Johnson but in my experience as a budding, college journalist,
state officials are more likely not to call back unless I lied and said I was
a reporter for the Los Angeles Times or Orange County Register.
All in all, from what I did manage to gather, I learned that depending on the
petition to be signed, petitioners work for various hiring companies like National
Petition Management and Progressive Campaign. Some are paid hourly, some work
full days, and others are paid per signature. At the very least, student petitioners
are paid $1 per signature. Anyone can be a petitioner as long as they are registered
to vote and are residents of the county where they are collecting signatures.
So next time a petitioner comes at you with “Are you registered to vote?” don’t
answer yes and don’t answer no. Instead, answer their question with another
question. How much will you pay for my autograph?
Niki Payne is a junior journalism major.
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