California Secretary of State candidate and incumbent State Senator Leland Yee has conditionally endorsed e-initiatives (online signature-gathering), citing their ability to “empower grassroots organizers and help protect the initiative process from being dominated by moneyed interests.”
In a statement issued today, the San Francisco/San Mateo County-based Democrat told Etopia News:
“First, I would need to have proof that signatures were
collected honestly. Online Voter Registration checks signatures against DMV records,
and I would want a similar assurance that individuals could not abuse the
system by signing up people without their knowledge. But provided such a system
could be proven safe, secure, and free of fraud, I would support the electronic
gathering of signatures. This innovative use of technology could empower
grassroots organizers and help protect the initiative process from being
dominated by moneyed interests.”
Senator Yee is the second of the six candidates for
Secretary of State to endorse, even conditionally, the concept of letting
eligible California voters sign official initiative, referendum, recall, in
lieu and nomination petitions online, using an extension and expansion of the
existing Online Voter Registration system that uses properly- and
securely-accessed digitized signatures from the DMV database to authenticate online
voter registration forms, as advocated by the non-partisan Coalition for an E-Initiative.
Secretary of State candidate David Curtis, who’s been
endorsed by the Green Party of California, endorsed e-initiatives in an Etopia
News interview recorded on February 27, 2014, and viewable here.
Dan Schnur, a third (decline-to-state) candidate for this
office, has said that if he is elected, he will “convene a discussion” of this reform.
Republican candidate for Secretary of State Pete Peterson has
gone so far on this issue as to say he supports “exploring e-signatures in ballot initiatives.”
The two remaining Democratic candidates, California State
Senator Alex Padilla, and former Common
Cause vice president for state operations Derek Cressman, have not taken public
positions on e-initiatives, although Senator Alex Padilla declined earlier this
year to “carry” a bill implementing e-initiatives in the current session of the
California State Legislature.
