Thread: MD Anti-DREAM Act petition count - UPDATED

Anti-DREAM Act petition count starts

Published 06/04/11

Local elections officials throughout the state have begun validating signatures on the anti-DREAM Act petition.

Opponents of the bill turned in, by their estimate, about 62,000 signatures to the state earlier this week.

They need to have 18,579 signatures from valid Maryland voters to keep the petition drive alive. By the end of June, they need more than 55,736.

If they hit that number - which represents 3 percent of the votes cast for governor last year - then voters will get to decide the fate of the DREAM Act during the 2012 election.

The DREAM Act allows illegal immigrant students to pay in-state college tuition rates under certain circumstances. It was one of the most hotly debated issues during the recent 90-day General Assembly session.

So far, elections officials counted 4,496 valid signatures and 612 invalid signatures.

The state Board of Elections plans to update the total on its website as counting continues. Counting must be complete by June 20.

http://www.hometownannapolis.com/news/g ... tarts.html

(Mod edit to title to change MA to MD - imblest)

Blog:CAPITAL POLITICS

DREAM Act petitioners almost halfway

Posted: June 6, 11:40 am

The state Board of Elections posted an update on Monday morning on the efforts to verify signatures on the anti-DREAM Act petition.

As of 9 a.m., 9,280 signatures had been counted as valid and 1,283 signatures had been counted as invalid.

In this first round of counting, the petition organizers need to have 18,579 signatures from valid Maryland voters to keep their effort going. They're just about halfway there.

Their goal is to put the DREAM Act on the ballot for voters to decide in 2012. The DREAM Act, you may recall, allows illegal immigrant students to pay in-state rates for college tuition under certain circumstances.

If the petitioners reach the 18,579 number, then they'll need to turn in a total of 55,736 signatures by the end of June. (The first batch counts toward the overall total.)

You can check out Monday morning's verification report here. Note that only 12 jurisdictions are reporting verifications so far.

Several counties, including Anne Arundel, list zero verified and zero invalidated. Many other counties are not on the list at all.

The lion's share of verified signatures so far are from Baltimore County -- 7,269.

Del. Nick Kipke, R-Pasadena, has led the signature effort in Anne Arundel County and estimated that more than 8,600 signatures were turned in from county voters.

Signature verification continues through June 20.

http://www.hometownannapolis.com/blogs/ ... lfway.html

Dream Act opponents pass first test

By David Hill
The Washington Times
12:01 p.m., Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Organizers of a petition to repeal Maryland’s Dream Act notched an important victory Tuesday, as they received an official go-ahead to continue their signature drive through the end of June.

The state Board of Elections confirmed Tuesday morning it has validated more than 21,000 signatures on the petition to block the law allowing in-state tuition for some illegal immigrants.

Petitioners were required to turn in at least 18,579 valid signatures from registered voters by May 31, in order to continue working toward a final goal of 55,736 signatures by June 30.

If the petitioners satisfy both requirements, the Dream Act would be suspended and decided by a November 2012 statewide vote.

The Dream Act was passed in April by the General Assembly and would allow in-state tuition rates for many college-aged illegal immigrants who come from tax-paying families. It is scheduled to go into effect on July 1.

Petitioners turned in more than 58,000 signatures to election officials on May 31, less than half of which had been reviewed as of Tuesday morning. A count posted shortly after 10 a.m. on the state Board of Elections‘ website showed 21,919 signatures had been validated, while 3,723 had been rejected.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/201 ... irst-test/

DREAM Act petition clears another hurdle

Number of verified signatures easily above first benchmark

By PAMELA WOOD, Staff Writer
Published 06/08/11

Elections officials have verified 31,016 signatures from Maryland voters who want the DREAM Act on next year's ballot - well beyond the initial requirement of 18,579 signatures.

They've tossed out 5,821 signatures, for a verification rate of about 84 percent.

Del. Nic Kipke, R-Pasadena, who is leading the signature-collection effort in Anne Arundel County, said the large percentage of valid signatures is due to careful collection of signatures by dedicated volunteers.

The effort is being made largely by volunteers on a shoestring budget. Petition organizers haven't used hired signature collectors, who may not care much about the outcome, Kipke said.

"Because the effort is so grass-roots-driven, I believe people are more invested and they worked hard to make sure this was done right," Kipke said.

If the petition drive succeeds, voters will get a chance to approve - or reject - the DREAM Act, a bill that allows illegal immigrant students to pay in-state college tuition rates under certain circumstances.

The DREAM Act was one of the most controversial bills of the recent General Assembly session.

Supporters, including Gov. Martin O'Malley, say the bill will give more young people an opportunity to gain an education and be productive workers.

But opponents chafe at the idea of giving illegal immigrants a benefit normally reserved for legal residents. They also say it would be expensive, especially at a time when the state can ill-afford to give tuition discounts.

"This legislation is so far out of step with the average voter," Kipke said.

Elections officials still have thousands more pages to review from the first batch of 62,000 signatures.

By the end of June, petitioners need to get a total of 55,736 valid signatures, which represents 3 percent of the number of votes for governor in the last election.

The counting is being done by local elections officials, and, for the first time, Anne Arundel County and Queen Anne's County reported signature verifications yesterday.

Anne Arundel elections Director Joseph A. Torre III said his staffers were in training classes on signature verification procedures and didn't start examining petitions until yesterday.

He has 11 workers looking at 8,586 signatures of Anne Arundel voters that were turned in.

Torre isn't worried about the late start, as the law gives his staff until June 20 to review all of the signatures.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
pwood@capitalgazette.com

http://www.hometownannapolis.com/news/t ... urdle.html

County Council statement of support for petition against Dream Act

June 9, 2011 4:08 pm ET
Ann Miller
Baltimore County Republican Examiner

Today, five of seven members of the Baltimore County Council have issued a statement supporting the referendum petition against the Dream Act, which grants tax funded tuition for illegal immigrants in Maryland.

This follows similar public statements made by commissioners in Frederick and Carroll counties.

The council members, which include Chairman John Olszewski, Councilmen Todd Huff, David Marks, Cathy Bevins, and Vicki Almond, expressed concern about the financial burden the legislation could place on county residents and their support for the petition which, if successful, would allow citizens to vote on the measure on the 2012 ballot. See the statement of support here.

The two councilmen who refrained from supporting the referendum petition are Councilmen Ken Oliver and Tom Quirk, who represent the fourth and first districts on the west side of the county, respectively.

Councilman Oliver had this to say, “[The councilmen] have a right to say what they want to say, just like I have the right to disagree with them.... I think people have not read the entire bill. Once you read the entire bill, the student has to provide three years of tax returns to show they have been taxpayers. Not only that, but this is a state issue. We shouldn’t even be involved in it... [State issues] do effect the county, but as a citizen of Baltimore County and as an elected official, I will abide by Maryland state laws.â€

There should be no form of Dream Act in any state. Also since SCOTUS ruled that even illegals can go to our schools we need to take the following action. Mandate that no school will give diplomas to any undocumented or illegal student who attends the school. No college credits or diplomas to be issued to undocumented or illegals. Yes they can attend..they just do not get documentation for attending. Basically NO DOCUMENTATION...NO DOCUMENTS!

Dream Act petitions: New life for the Md. GOP

6:07 p.m. EDT, June 13, 2011

In the 96 years that Maryland voters have been allowed to challenge state laws through a voter referendum, just 17 attempts have made it on the ballot, and none have gotten that far in the last 20 years. The reason isn't that the state hasn't passed any controversial legislation in that time, or that the threshold for signatures — a number equivalent to 3 percent of the votes cast for governor in the last election — is especially high. The reason, particularly in recent years, is that the legal requirements for what counts as a valid signature have grown increasingly Byzantine, such that a huge percentage of them are typically thrown out.

Successfully navigating the process, even for a local law, has required a well-financed and organized effort, and traditionally, the one group you'd think would have the funding, organization and desire to overturn laws enacted by the Democratic-controlled General Assembly — the state Republican Party — has either sat on the sidelines or failed to get the job done. Even a 2006 effort backed by a sitting Republican governor failed to meet all the requirements.

What's fascinating about the current petition drive to overturn the law granting in-state tuition to some illegal immigrants in Maryland — an effort with which we disagree — is that it's largely the work of one man, a heretofore little-known freshman lawmaker from Washington County, Del. Neil Parrott, who has used technology to do what others have not. He has devised a system using a web form and a state voter database to produce signature sheets, helping him overcome one of the chief problems previous petition drives have grappled with: people who fill out petitions with versions of their names and other information that's slightly different from what's in the state voter records. Fill in your name, phone number, date of birth, ZIP Code and email address, and his website, mdpetitions.com, creates a form for you to sign with all the information appearing exactly as it does in state records.

Now other Republicans are hailing Delegate Parrott's innovation as a game changer, one that will allow them to routinely bring to referendum laws they think are unpopular. That's unlikely. The immigrant tuition petition has certainly been helped by Mr. Parrott's efforts, but the real driver of this effort is the degree of passion stirred up by the issue. There aren't many laws that can match it in terms of the visceral reaction it has inspired in opponents. Furthermore, the idea that Republicans would seek to petition to referendum one or more laws a year relies on a misguided assumption by the state GOP that the bulk of Maryland voters secretly disagree with the Democratic majority on a whole host of issues, yet for some reason keep electing them by a 2-1 margin.

Moreover, a challenge to the website-produced signature sheets by the American Civil Liberties Union should not be discounted. The group argues that given very real cases of fraud in previous petition efforts, the state has justifiably instituted rules that require petition signers to be the ones to provide the information included in state voter records as a mechanism to ensure the signatures are genuine. The state has, for example, rejected the idea of letting people sign sheets pre-printed with the required information, and the ACLU argues that Mr. Parrott's website amounts to the same thing. Moreover, in traditional petitioning, a canvasser vouches for the signatures he or she collects, whereas in this case, each website-produced form is self-verified. The system also provides the option of creating forms for other members of the signer's household, even if their names are never input in the website.

The ACLU's complaint raises some tricky questions — the way the site allows users to generate forms for other household members is particularly troublesome. But we have traditionally disagreed with the notion that making the process of circulating and signing petitions complicated and confusing serves a legitimate purpose; it seems likely to invalidate many legitimate signatures while still allowing plenty of opportunity for fraud. Case in point: During the lead up to last year's vote on zoning for slots at Arundel Mills mall, the courts were concerned with whether middle initials on petition sheets matched voter records, not with allegations that dozens of names were signed with identical handwriting. That said, given the language of the state law and the way similar cases have been decided in the past, it would not be surprising to see the courts side with the ACLU.

No matter what, though, Mr. Parrott shows that even after the Republican nominee was trounced in the gubernatorial race and the party lost state Senate seats in what was nationally a GOP wave election, political competition and debate are alive and well in Maryland. This petition drive may not lead to a flurry of referenda, or even to a successful challenge to the Maryland Dream Act. But it provides a new template for political activism and engagement in Maryland, and that is ultimately good for democracy.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinio ... 4571.story

Full Deployment needed here! Please HELP!!!


http://www.alipac.us/ftopicp-1235438.html#1235438

DREAM Act petition up to 47,379 signatures

Posted: June 17, 8:36 am

Look for the first round of signature verification on the immigrant tuition petition to wrap up soon.

Elections officials legally have until Monday to finish verifying the first batch of signatures turned in by opponents of the DREAM Act.

The DREAM Act would allow illegal immigrant students to pay in-state college tuition rates under certain circumstances. Opponents of the measure are trying to block it by letting voters decide during the 2012 election.

On June 1, the turned in 62,496 signatures from voters who want a referendum on the DREAM Act in 2012.

As of Thursday afternoon, elections officials had accepted 47,379 signatures and tossed out 10,122 signatures. That leaves just 4,995 more signatures that still need to be reviewed.

In this first batch of signatures, referendum opponents needed to have 18,579 valid voter signatures to keep the petition drive alive. They surpassed that mark easily.

The next task is to get the signature total up to 55,736 by June 30 -- which shouldn't be too difficult. Ever since the first signatures were turned in, petition organizers have been busy collecting thousands more signatures.

While it appears clear that petition organizers will likely get enough signatures, there remain questions about the methods they used to collect many signatures.

The ACLU sent a letter to the Maryland State Board of Elections challenging the www.mdpetitions.com website, which uses state elections data to automatically fill in information on the petition form that website visitors print out.

http://www.hometownannapolis.com/blogs/ ... tures.html

ACLU Challenges Petition to Overturn DREAM Act

The American Civil Liberties Union argues the electronic petition form invites fraud.

By Lauren Sausser 1:00pm

The American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland has sent a letter to the State Board of Elections, voicing its concerns about the electronic petition form currently being used to solicit signatures by a group that is attempting to overturn theDREAM Act.

The Maryland General Assembly passed the DREAM Act by a narrow margin in April. The legislation will allow certain undocumented immigrants to attended Maryland state colleges at the discounted in-state tuition rate.

Del. Neil Parrott (R-2B) of Hagerstown is spearheading the effort to overturn the legislation, which is set to go into effect on July 1. The group is collecting signatures in a traditional way—sending out volunteers and canvassing the public. It also has built a Web site that allows registered voters to fill out a form online, print it out, sign it and mail it in.

It is the first time in Maryland history that this electronic method has been used to collect signatures for a petition that could potentially halt the implementation of legislation.

“I have been here for 10 years and I have not seen this technology before,â€