QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
QUESTION...What exactly are we changing with this electronic signature gathering proposal?
QUESTION...What is wrong with the way it currently works?
QUESTION...Why is electronic signature gathering better?
QUESTION...How do we protect ourselves from hacking?
QUESTION...How do we deal with the concept of initiative fatigue where voters can only process so much information in order to make a sound and informed decision?
QUESTION...What is our time frame to get this done?
- ANSWER...The ability for all CA voters to legally have our electronic signatures be "DEEMED AFFIXED" (just like our pen and paper signatures) to initiative, referendum and recall petitions at all levels here in CA!
QUESTION...What is wrong with the way it currently works?
- ANSWER...Everything! This answer would be a small book to cover it all but here are some of the key points!
- The ability to petition our government is not serving the voters of CA the way it was intended, because our population is very large and the collection of pen and paper signatures very difficult to achieve. We have voters excluded because they live in rural areas, being disabled and home-bound, and away from home, ie; active military voters!
- Furthermore, we are having to sort through millions of non-registered people to find those who are registered, and even then the odds of their information being up to date is is very poor!
- Name changes, moving to a new location, filling out petitions incorrectly, not being able to read a name or address, and people signing petitions more than once all causes valid signatures to be disqualified when random samples are are taken and used to represent the entire amount turned in!
- Collecting hundreds of thousands of signatures requires massive sacrifices for dedicated groups of people to find the time and resources to spend sitting out in front of grocery stores and such, soliciting people for support which is entirely not necessary!
- The cost to pay people to do it for us is in the millions at $5 to $10 per signature, and that makes just about everyone not a multi-millionaire in CA unable use this system, and be forced to volunteer time that most simply don't have to spend!
- Pen and paper petition fraud is worse than electronic! We give our voter information and signature sample to complete strangers and expect them to not use them illegally when they can forge our signatures and make money doing so every time they take a job collecting signatures for someone who can afford to pay for every signature produced. Purposely signing petitions more than once also gets used to derail political efforts by opposition.
- The process of vetting signatures is also subject to human error! Yes people use their judgement (biased or not) to try and match up our electronic signature samples to our pen and paper wet signatures on petitions. Lots of room for our voter endorsements to be lost, inappropriately disqualified, and even swept under the carpet!
QUESTION...Why is electronic signature gathering better?
- ANSWER...Literally everything that is wrong mentioned in the previous answer gets fixed and voters get to use these processes like never before seen, which becomes another book of explanation and points to make if we were to address it all!
- The tracking of every key stroke and link accessed, the ability to instantly be counted, participate from practically any general location, having privacy and security using the system that already houses all of our data securely, and being able to participate, be included and not have to beg elected officials to represent us when we can represent ourselves, is why!
- Being able to use an electronic signature adds accountability that a two dimensional pen and paper signature simply can't. The ability to show some information and keep the rest private for example. This signature counts get shown to all, while the voter who signed and their personal information only gets viewed by those authorized to validate it, and the overall endorsement on any given proposal remains private based on the existing laws that makes it illegal for our information to be used in any other capacity.
QUESTION...How do we protect ourselves from hacking?
- ANSWER...We already are protecting ourselves as we currently use electronic signature processing for literally everything else in our lives!
- The fact that we use them in all of our financial and business transactions, state records and reports, and all levels of government functioning is call to sound the alarm when the exception occurs only when it comes to legal petitions. This is nothing less than discrimination! The bottom line is that we have solutions and counter measures and even examples of systems that have never been hacked to go by.
- Understanding the the way the entire system legally works also helps to alleviate this concern. It is just a proposal process. Our signatures only put our solutions on a ballot where voting is the ultimate deciding factor, and even then we still have legal recourse to help us get things right. Hacking a proposal to get on a ballot could easily be rejected by not getting any votes. Hacking a proposal out of being supported only delays the inevitable question as we can always simply resubmit! The incentive for hacking is more in the financial arena anyway and financial support provided to hackers is another way to catch them if transactions are recorded in any way. The laws that are already in place would be used full force if criminal activity is caught at any level!
- Hacking is a bigger concern at the user interface. But so is signing with pen and paper. We have the ability to reset our security measures and to participate privately and that is already evident in every place we already use this technology. Picking pockets will always be an issue we must contend with but let the thief beware because we are also capable of being vigilant!
QUESTION...How do we deal with the concept of initiative fatigue where voters can only process so much information in order to make a sound and informed decision?
- ANSWER...This is addressed in the proposal itself by legally directing pro and con arguments to help keep our information focused, much like what we see in our voter brochures!
- The ease of having this information at our fingertips will also make it much easier for people to access the information. The Secretary of State website, in charge of presenting this entire process could also easily categorize proposals based on support! This would help us to skim solutions that are not as supported and dig in more on those with support.
- Another solution not built into this proposals legal directives could be to simply adjust the percentage of signatures needed to qualify any given proposal. We currently need 5% of the last gubernatorial votes counted for a statutory proposal and 8% for a Ca Constitutional Amendment proposal. These numbers could easily be doubled or even tripled making more support necessary to even be considered but this would have to be something voters put in place once we have a more efficient system to use.
QUESTION...What is our time frame to get this done?
- ANSWER...This depends entirely on when we have enough volunteers to get the job done! Once we will get re-cleared to circulate our pdf downloadable petition and clearance circulate them with a new title and summary we will get 180 days (six months) to get 625,000 valid voter signatures in support of CIRRRA. We will need to collect over 1 million to account for all the signatures lost and thrown out so time is of the essence to get organized and our work collected, counted, vetted and turned in to each CA county we gather signatures in! With the APRIL 2020 deadline approaching fast that would have got us on the November 2020 ballot, it is clear we will not meet this deadline as we do not have the volunteers to ensure this run will be a success! We will continue to grow this solution given we obtain the volunteer support needed and rerun as needed until it becomes law in CA and ask for the same system to be put in place in every state to ensure our government remains, of the people, by the people, and for the people at all levels!
So signing up and helping others to sign up and volunteer is the only thing that is keeping CIRRRA from getting enough signatures to qualify this for a CA Statewide Ballot! We are ready to support all volunteers and organize efforts with the utmost respect for each and every individual sacrifice that goes into this effort! We will work as a team and support everyone in every way possible though every step of this process! Once signed up, it is just a matter of helping others do the same and our time frame will be set once we have the volunteers in place!
CEVI, electronic voting questions and answers coming soon!
WEBSITE PAID FOR BY YES ON THE CALIFORNIA INITIATIVE, REFERENDUM AND RECALL REFORM ACT
AND ELECTRONIC VOTING INITIATIVES
and committee major funding by Timothy Draper
FPPC# 1420476
AND ELECTRONIC VOTING INITIATIVES
and committee major funding by Timothy Draper
FPPC# 1420476