Gone are the days of seeing the signature-gatherer outside your grocery store and in its place is the most competitive petitioners’ landscape ever.
Professional petitition services have called it “the weirdest year yet,” and there are a few reasons why.
First, the record-low turnout in 2014 means a lower signature requirement for this cycle.
Second, the presidential election year means a turnout that favors democrats, which encourages left-leaning causes to try and get on the ballot.
And third, the Legislature recently prohibited initiatives from appearing on the June ballot, meaning they all pile up for November.
Campaign officials think the number of measures on the ballot could exceed 20. Hope you vote yes on heavy reading.
So what does this mean for the prices being paid for signatures? They are going up.
With four companies in the state doing the bulk of the signature gathering work and 79 petitions approved to collect signatures, things are a little inundated to say the least.
On top of this, the $2-per-pack tobacco tax measure has caused one lobby to pull out all the stops. Cigarette companies have begun paying more than double the current price for signatures on competing measures and then hiring all the signature-gathering firms, in an effort to lock the $2-per-pack measure out of the market.
What is the current price for a signature these days? While in previous years, campaigns could expect to pay around $1 or $2 per signature, this cycle it has ballooned up to $3 or $4. This raises the overall cost for a measure’s campaign by between $2 million and $4 million.
Democracy aint cheap.
More on this year’s signature price boom can be found here.