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BILL # SB 1451 |
TITLE: statewide ballot measures; circulators; procedures |
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SPONSOR: Leach |
STATUS: House Engrossed |
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PREPARED BY: Adam Golden |
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The House Engrossed bill would:
· Require those registering as a circulator for a statewide initiative or referendum to submit a signed and notarized affidavit to the Secretary of State (SOS).
· Require the SOS to register and assign a registration number to the circulator within 5 days after submission and review of a completed registration application.
· Prohibit those with certain criminal histories from registering as circulators.
· Designate providing false information or unlawful registration as a circulator as a Class 1 misdemeanor.
· Require that submitted petitions include the circulator registration number and be grouped by paid circulator. The SOS would be required to remove any petitions sheets not in compliance.
Estimated Impact
The bill would require the SOS to upgrade their IT system used for registering circulators. The SOS currently operates a web-based circulator portal, which accepts information from registrants including name, address, and ballot measure. The SOS estimates that updating the system to accept the notarized affidavit as required by the bill would cost $18,000 for an additional 1 to 2 months of IT development work.
The bill would also require additional labor when examining, de-stapling, and organizing petition packets due to the new petition review requirements. This additional labor is expected to increase temporary staff costs by 50%, an increase of $86,500. The total cost of the bill, therefore, is estimated to be $104,500.
The SOS believes that language in the bill may require their office to individually review each circulator application for completeness and correctness and that this responsibility would come with significant costs. Legislative Council does not believe that the bill would require such review.
The Arizona Constitution allows voters to propose new laws, amend existing laws, and veto recently passed laws through the initiative and referendum process. A constitutional amendment may qualify for the ballot if the sponsoring committee submits valid signatures from qualified electors that equal at least 15% of all votes cast for candidates for Governor at the last general election. For statutory initiatives and referendums, the percentages are 10% and 5%, respectively.
To meet these requirements, sponsoring committees often hire paid circulators to gather signatures. The bill would modify the registration process of these circulators.
Under current law, paid circulators and those who are not residents of Arizona are required to register with the SOS, providing a statement that consents to the court jurisdiction of any disputes concerning their collected petitions and an Arizona address to which they will accept service of process related to those concerns.
(Continued)
This bill would require the circulator to additionally provide their full name, residence address, telephone number, email address, and the initiative or referendum petition for which they are gathering signatures. According to their Petition Circulation Training Guide, the SOS already collects this information from those registering as circulators. The bill, however, would additionally require those registering to provide a notarized signature on an affidavit specified in the bill.
To accommodate this added requirement, the SOS would need to update its Circulator Portal software so that the application could now accept scanned copies of the notarized affidavit. The SOS spent $51,600 on development of its custom online Circulator Portal in FY 2018 and estimates that updating the portal to accept electronic copies of signed and notarized affidavits would cost an additional $18,000 for an increase of 1 to 2 months of IT development work.
The bill would also modify the process by which petition sheets are verified. Prior to the signature verification process, existing statute requires the SOS to disqualify entire petition sheets that fail to meet 7 specified standards. To do so, the SOS staff hires temporary staff to examine, de-staple, and organize thousands of petition sheets. In FY 2018, the cost of these temporary staff hires was $100,500. Before any changes required by SB 1451, the JLBC Staff estimates SOS processing costs would be $173,000. This 72% increase is based on 14% higher labor costs (minimum wage increasing from $10.50 to $12.00) and 58% higher signature requirements for 2020 ballot measures.
The bill would additionally require the SOS and the temporary staff to examine the petition sheets for the circulator registration number and to ensure that the sheets are grouped by circulator (presently they must only be grouped by county). According to the SOS, these additional requirements are expected to increase the time needed to examine each petition packet by about 50%. If this increase of 50% is applied to the 2020 base temporary staff costs, the additional labor required as a result of the bill is estimated to increase these costs by $86,500.
In total, the IT upgrade for the new registration requirements and the additional temporary staff costs are estimated to increase SOS costs by $104,500.
Local Government Impact
None
4/3/19