Now that Arizonans for Wildlife (aka the Humane Society) has unrolled their signature gathering campaign for the ballot initiative to ban wild cat hunting in Arizona, sportsmen and women need to become petition watchers.
The State of Arizona has strict new guidelines that must be followed in gathering signatures for a petition. These must be followed or can possibly void the entire petition.
- Paid petitioners must be a registered at the Arizona Secretary of State’s of Arizona prior to circulating petitions
- Volunteers do not need to register
- Prior to circulation the “volunteer” or “paid circulator” line needs to be checked. This is located at the top right of the petition page
(See a sample petition HERE). - The person signing must fill out all lines within the petition. Information cannot be written in by the circulator
- The complete ballot initiative text must be attached to the petitions at all times Click HERE to see a copy.
- All petition pages must have a designated by county from which the signers are from. If signers are from mixed counties the county from which the majority of the signers are from are permissible. All others are voided.
- All persons signing the petition must be a qualified elector in the State of Arizona. Qualified elector is over the age of 18 with no felony convictions
- The reverse side of the petition must indicate a name of the circulator who collected the signatures on the front of the sheet
- The affidavit on the reverse side of the petition needs to be filled out prior to circulation. The affidavit must be signed by circulator in the presence of a notary for notarization
If you see violations of any of the above, use your phone to take a picture of the petition and be sure to document the name of the petitioner, the date and location the petition was being circulated and send to us. We will be collecting
the information and passing along to the proper authorities. Individuals submitting violations themselves have less likelihood of making much difference but a collection from multiple people could have an impact. Please do not engage in debate with the petitioner or anyone else who may sign the petition as this can negatively impact our efforts.
In addition to looking for violations, if the petitioners are on private property, such as a grocery store or other business, either call or speak directly to the manager and ask if they’ve given permission for the petitioners to be there. If so, tell them you are offended and will boycott their place of business. If you share the name and location of the business with us we will pass it along to over 17,000 other sportsmen and women urging them to do the same. We believe most businesses will not want this kind of attention.
More to come, stay tuned!
Contact us at [email protected] with any questions or information.