Online petitioning system previewed

Charter amendments meant to provide clarity, ease in election process

A new online petitioning system will be available for use in the 2021 election cycle, and the Boulder City Council on Tuesday had its first glimpse of the new software.

The platform, called Boulder Direct Democracy Online, was created by Arizona-based election services company Runbeck. It’s related to a decision made in November 2017, when voters passed a charter amendment allowing for electronic endorsement of initiative petitions that was meant to simplify the direct democracy process.

In addition to demonstrating the new software, city staff and councilmembers on Tuesday clarified election guidelines, which came under scrutiny this summer when campaign organizers were given incorrect information by city officials about filing and signature requirements for initiative petitions.

The council plans to vote on the charter amendments, which specify that state law applies, and the new online petitioning system in a public hearing during the Nov. 10 special meeting. The changes would then have to be approved by voters next November. Councilmembers agreed the decision should happen sooner rather than later.

“Let’s put this to bed as quickly as possible,” Councilmember Adam Swetlik said.

Boulder will follow state law on charter amendments since the council voted 6-3 to do so in July, but City Attorney Tom Carr acknowledged that clarity is key and said current guidelines left “too much wiggle room.”

“I’m not a big believer in subtlety when you’re making amendments. You should absolutely, clearly state your intent,” he said.

“I think the most important thing is that we establish absolute clarity so that we avoid similar problems that we’ve had this year,” Councilmember Aaron Brockett agreed.

Several campaigns this year petitioned to get on the ballot, but the Boulder City Council in April

denied an emergency order that would have temporarily allowed signatures gathered electronically to count toward the thresholds required for resident-led initiatives to make the ballot.

Activists pushed for this, largely because of the coronavirus pandemic, which kept people inside and made many uncomfortable about signing paper petitions and interacting with petition gatherers.

“We decided we were willing to risk our health and lives to go out in person to collect signatures because there was no alternative provided,” Chelsea Castellano said. “That impacted us a lot. It impacted how many people we could get to collect signatures … and it impacted how many people wanted to sign the petition.”

Castellano is one of the campaign organizers for Bedrooms Are For People, an initiative that aims to allow housing units to be occupied by the same number of people as available bedrooms, plus one, and for a total of four people to occupy a home with fewer than four bedrooms. In most of Boulder, it’s illegal to have more than three unrelated people living together, though, in some specific areas, the limit is four, according to the group’s website. The initiative did not make the ballot this year due to the incorrect information provided by the city.

Since Bedrooms Are For People was a charter amendment initiative, the measure wouldn’t be allowed to use the Boulder Direct Democracy Online platform as it currently stands.

The memo provided to the City Council cites a state law that requires petitions for charter amendments to be signed in the presence of a circulator. It says the new software would allow electronic petitioning to be extended to charter amendments in the future if state law changes.

But that wouldn’t have prohibited campaign organizers such as Castellano from switching to a municipal initiative, which proposes a measure to the City Council and allows councilmembers to adopt it or submit it for a vote of the people.

Regarding Boulder Direct Democracy Online, there were some concerns from the council, particularly in terms of the requirement that an initiative select either the new online petitioning system or the old paper system. Carr cited staff efficiency as the main reason for requiring initiatives to choose a method.

Councilmember Mark Wallach, however, said he worried that stipulation could suppress participation instead of fostering it. He thought some would be against signing a petition electronically, and that campaign organizers would lose valuable in-person interactions with potential voters when choosing the new online system.

Others agreed. Councilmember Rachel Friend suggested using a hybrid process for a few years while adjusting to the new system, but Carr shot that idea down, saying it would require re-creating the software. He recommended trying it out for a year or so and reevaluating the decision down the road if there’s negative feedback.

Additionally, there was some concern about the requirement that petition signers provide a phone number as a way to verify the person signing is a registered voter. Some councilmembers argued people would be hesitant to sign with this requirement and acknowledged there are people without phones or phone numbers. Carr recognized this as a problem and suggested those concerned could create a Google Voice number and update their voter registration information.

Members of the city’s former campaign finance working group prior to Tuesday’s meeting expressed frustration with the city for contracting with Runbeck for the online petitioning system instead of Maplight, a nonprofit that, among other things, develops software for governments and other nonprofits.

“It is completely appalling that the City staff, on its own initiative and against the recommendations of the Campaign Finance Working Group, went ahead and signed a contract (even before the Working Group was able to submit its report) to create an online and paper petition system with a company that obviously can’t produce what’s needed,” Margaret Lecompte wrote in an email to the Boulder City Council ahead of Tuesday’s meeting.

Although a few people emailed the council with concerns about Runbeck prior to the meeting, those concerns were not addressed in the study session.