Nebraska officials call for stronger guardrails around paid petition circulators

Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen and Secretary of State Bob Evnen are seeking legislative reform of the paid petition circulator model.

At a press conference Thursday, Pillen, Evnen and county election officials commented on recent alleged petition fraud and their hopes for legislative change.

In the last two months, the Nebraska State Patrol and local county law enforcement have started widespread investigations of alleged fraud for statewide and local petition efforts.

The Secretary of State’s office and local election officials analyzed over 767,000 signatures that were submitted to counties in support of 17 separate petitions for this upcoming election, according to Evnen.

In Lincoln, more than 13,000 signatures from one petition group were suspected of being fraudulent. Seven paid circulators have been arrested due to suspected fraud.

Pillen’s hope is to move away from the pay-per-signature model.

“Moving to an hourly compensation model reframes the circulator's role, encouraging thorough and accurate and lawful conversations with everyday Nebraskans rather than warp speed, warp speed quota chasing,” Pillen said.

That model was used by On the Ballot LLC, a subcontractor of Vanguard Field Strategies, for three Lincoln charter amendment petitions from the Good Government Lincoln group.

Vanguard — a subsidiary of GOP consultant Axiom Strategies — has previously worked on Nebraska ballot initiatives such as “Institution of Voter ID” and "Protecting Women and Children.”

Vanguard recently did field services work for the Fairness for Girls petition, according to filings with the Nebraska Accountability and Disclosure Commission. That is one of the statewide petitions currently under investigation.

The newly established America First party said it has concerns about “how little attention was paid to the political operation where this scandal began.” It’s referring to Good Government Lincoln and its ties to Axiom. The group lists Axiom’s Jessica Flanagain, Daniel Bass and Zoe Ganzman as its sponsors.

“These circulators did not hire themselves,” America First Chairman John Cartier said in a statement. “Someone selected the vendors, someone supervised the work, someone was responsible for quality control, and experienced political professionals ultimately submitted these petitions."

When asked if organizations or entities that hire circulators will be accountable for circulators’ behaviors, Evnen said that will be a part of the discussion before legislation is proposed.

“No more paying circulators by the signature,” Evnen said. “The legislation also will include a requirement that circulators be U.S. citizens, and it will prohibit circulators who are felons. Petition circulators will be required to complete training and to consent to the jurisdiction of the state.”

This isn’t the first time the state has tightened restrictions on petition gathering.

In 2008, LB39 required petition circulators to be Nebraska residents, banned per-signature pay and enforced age requirements. The Legislature reversed that prohibition for paid circulation in 2015.

Pillen commented on former state Sen. DiAnna Schimek’s work with LB39, saying the state needs “to go back to that.”

“The process of bounty signature gathering is sabotaging legitimate petition initiative efforts. It's as simple as that. It's not the Nebraska way,” Pillen said.

Republican Secretary of State candidate Scott Petersen told Nebraska Public Media News he agreed with Pillen, saying, “we should probably clean up that process, tighten it up a little bit.”

Petersen’ s Democratic opponent Sarah Slattery said she doesn’t believe in banning paid petitioners outright but does see a need for more scrutiny and regulation.

“I personally don't think you should be able to circulate, get signatures for something that you can't even vote on because you're not a Nebraska citizen, right? I think that if you can't find enough Nebraska voters to circulate your petition, then maybe it shouldn't be circulated,” Slattery said.

She added that she believes an hourly wage for signature gatherers would be more appropriate.

One Nebraska group, though, opposes banning commission-based pay.

The ACLU of Nebraska’s Grant Friedman said the proposed prohibitions will limit Nebraskans’ ability to engage in the initiative process.

“We have everything from you know your outside million dollar-funded, all the way down to grassroots people here, everyone's a volunteer,” Friedman said. “And so when you're looking at who these are going to affect the most, it is going to be the individuals that are making committees in their community that are looking to provide, you know, some kind of way to make sure people can live while doing the initiative.”

He said the Nebraska ACLU will continue to monitor any legislation regarding paid circulators moving forward. Previously, the ACLU successfully challenged Nebraska’s ban on out-of-state circulators in 2009.

“Any attempt to kind of restrict who has access to this process is a restriction on not only that First Amendment right, but on, you know, the rights reserved within the initiative power,” Friedman said.