For Immediate Release
Contact: Will Kraus, 816-305-0712
Statement on Petition Signature Fraud
Today’s release of new information regarding the widespread petition signature fraud involving the collections of signatures for an early voting initiative is troubling in many aspects. While the secretary of state has addressed some of the reported problems by forwarding them to prosecutors, he and his office ignored many more issues and failed to look for issues outside what had already been reported to him.
The Elections Integrity Unit in the secretary of state’s office is proving to be more of a public relations tool rather than a true investigative unit. In fact, the secretary of state has no specific investigative powers and should have immediately forwarded all cases reported to him to local prosecutors. The fact that not all cases were forwarded to prosecutors is a serious concern considering that prosecutors, not a statewide official, should be the ones to decide if charges are warranted.
In addition, because of the obvious widespread fraud, the secretary of state should have reached out to local elections authorities who did not report petition signature fraud issues to see if there was fraud that should have been reported. It is hard to believe that other cases of fraud could not be found, especially in the state’s two most populous election areas.
Based on today’s report, I urge the secretary of state to immediately reexamine petitions from the failed initiative statewide. He should work in cooperation with all local election authorities to find and refer all possible cases of petition signature fraud and work with local prosecutors to be sure all cases of fraud are brought to justice. In addition, I urge local prosecutors to look at the possibility that such widespread fraud was directed or condoned by organizations supporting the petition.
Much of the statute local prosecutors will use to prosecute fraud in this case was updated in 2013 in House Bill 117. I will work with members of the General Assembly to look at ways to improve the integrity of the initiative petition process.
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