E-signatures considered for initiative petitions

An idea to allow electronic signature gathering, now being reviewed by the state attorney general's office, could drastically reduce the work required of citizens' groups to get a citizen initiative before voters.

Current rules do not explicitly bar electronic signatures, but the process is based on a system of physically gathering signatures on paper petitions.

Utah Democratic Party Chairman Todd Taylor said he broached the idea of e-signatures with Lt. Gov. Greg Bell's office after talking to organizers of Utahns for Ethical Government, one of two groups currently working to get initiatives on the general election ballot in 2010. While state Democrats are not involved with the ethics initiative, Taylor said he thought the proposal to allow digital signatures was worth vetting.

"Current state law already allows for electronic signatures in many instances," he said. "The more I looked at it, the more it seemed to make sense that this could work for the initiative process."

Paul Neuenschwander, Bell's deputy chief of staff, said the current code covering signature gathering for initiatives is unclear on the matter and his office has handed it to Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff for review. Neuenschwander said while the idea of streamlining the procedure with a digital option makes sense, ensuring the integrity of signature gathering is critical.

"The initiative process, and its administration, is extremely serious," Neuenschwander said. "It's not just collecting signatures. It's also about verifying authenticity and maintaining a trustworthy system."

At the moment, that system includes a manual verification that requires county clerks to compare names and addresses on the paper document with voter registration rolls.

Salt Lake County Deputy Clerk Jason Yocom said switching to electronic signature gathering would make verification much more efficient.

"It would be a matter of screening the electronic list with the voter rolls," he said. "While we don't have a process in place, it likely would be fairly easy to do."

Utah law requires signatures representing 10 percent of the number of total votes in the most recent gubernatorial election to advance an initiative.

Currently, UEG, working for legislative ethics reform, and the Fair Boundaries Coalition, stumping for a change in the state redistricting process, each need to gather some 96,000 signatures to get their proposals to the ballot.

e-mail: araymond@desnews.com