LOOPHOLES CITED IN PETITION PROCESS

Signatures checked by temporary workers with little experience

A temporary clerk in the secretary of state's office said her group of
ballot petition checkers had almost no supervision or training.

They also didn't understand the rules for rejecting petition signatures,
said Laurie Gaylord Simco, who worked in the election office from July
until late August.

"It is so dumb to leave a bunch of temps, including me, to do something in
the public interest," said Simco, who has a master's degree in finance and
marketing. "Training was a five-minute deal.

"The temps tried as hard as they could. They were all either high school or
college kids and mommies, like me. We asked for more people and we got an
absolute stonewall.

"America deserves better."

Secretary of State Victoria Buckley has come under criticism in recent
weeks for her office's failure to verify two ballot-measure petitions
within 30 days. The issues were automatically placed on the November.

Buckley did not respond to requests for comment.

But Mike Fortinberry of the state Republican Party defended Buckley, who is
up for re-election in November. "Checking signatures only takes five
minutes of training. We continue to have faith the secretary of state is
doing the best job possible."

Buckley has said the elections office was short-staffed because of
resignations, illness and the difficulty of finding good people through the
state's personnel system. She also has said the turnover in temporaries was
high.

Under previous secretaries of state, an experienced elections officer
stayed with the temporary workers for the whole shift, answering dozens of
questions on what was valid or invalid, fixing errors and checking the
results.

But during Simco's tenure, the petition supervisor was in the counting room
in the mornings to get new temporaries started and after lunch to count
noses. If they had questions, they were to ask a "veteran" temp -- someone
with a few days experience.

"He gave it his best effort and so did we," she said.

Simco said the lack of supervision was critical on a marijuana petition,
which Buckley ruled did not have enough valid signatures to be placed on
the November ballot. The proposal would have legalized use of marijuana for
medical reasons.

Not all petition signatures are checked. A computer selects several
thousand signatures at random, and the temporary clerks see if they belong
to registered voters. A statistical forumla is used to determine whether
the random sample results indicate the entire petition contains enough
signatures to be placed on the ballot.

Simco said the crew started to verify the random sample of marijuana
signatures, but received several different sets of directions. Many of the
clerks wanted to save time by checking the first 1,200 signatures, rather
than the random signatures selected by the computer.

"There was no one to ask," she said. Simco said she convinced the other
temps to use the random sample.

When they were nearly finished, they were told the random sample was
faulty, Simco said. The crew was then ordered to do a line-by-line count,
but was told to stop after about 1,500 signatures were checked.

Buckley, based on the random sample results, disqualified the petitions for
not having enough valid signatures.

"We don't know that," said Simco, who has worked for other state agencies.
"We had trouble with the random sample and only worked for a limited time
on the line-by-line before we were told to stop."

The random sample also was faulty for the petition requiring parental
notification when a minor seeks an abortion, Simco said. The temps were
told to do a line-by line count, but ran out of time. The 30-day limit for
the verification process had expired, and by law, the measure was put on
the ballot by default.

Backers of the marijuana initiative will be in court today to have a judge
overrule Buckley and put their issue on the ballot.

"They have grounds. We screwed it up," said Simco. "We worked on it and
tried hard and no one should be hung on it."

Luther Symons, spokesman for the marijuana initiative, said backers were
never told about the line-by-line count. Their own check of the random
sample found 211 signatures ruled invalid that should not have been.

Most of the 211 names were entered into the computer incorrectly, he said.

Ed Ramey, attorney for the marijuana backers, said, "It looks like it
occurred because there was ... inadequate training or inadequate
supervision in a context of a very high volume of work."

Carolyne Kelley was a full-time elections office employee in charge of
checking petitions until she quit in July -- a week before Simco started.
She said Simco's supervisor had about a year's experience in elections, but
had never worked with petition initiatives.

"I don't think any of the petitions were proofed," said Kelley. "We used to
proof them and pick up the entry errors. You have to have someone there
with the temporaries."

Simco said she blamed the process, not Buckley, for the problems. She
described Buckley as a friendly person who wasn't there often, but was
empathetic to the temporary workers.

"In public accounting, I've never seen anything with this level of hazard,"
said Simco. "There have been some serious errors, but no malfeasance."

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski