Global health crisis requires we be able to get signatures online

As “Outlaw Dirty Money” volunteers, we made the decision to do our part for public health and have paused all person-to-person contacts to get signatures on our petitions. Unfortunately, this action delivers a potentially crushing blow to our yearlong effort to get enough signatures to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot to require full disclosure of the original sources of money for political ads.

We have already collected over 275,000 signatures and were on track to make the required 357,000 signatures before the July 2 deadline.

Now, we are no longer able to personally collect signatures for who knows how long.

Citizens must still be able to exercise their constitutional rights, even in this time of crisis.

We ask our legislators to mitigate this unfairness. First, we request online petition signing — which legislative candidates already enjoy. Second, we request an end to the unnecessary notarization requirement — which legislative candidates are not required to obtain and requires additional person-to-person contacts, thus contributing to the health crisis.

Finally, if the health crisis goes on much longer, we request either the Legislature or the governor using their emergency powers to extend the deadline for signature submissions or allow our currently gathered signatures to be considered valid for the 2022 ballot.

As volunteers who are gravely concerned for the public’s health, we ask for these small accommodations in the name of fairness. All Arizonans are pulling together to fight this new and terrible foe. We hope everyone, especially our legislators, recognize there are legitimate ways to sign a petition that will not involve potentially dangerous personal contacts. Rivko Knox, Tammy Bosse, Dan Sussman, Libby Goff and Chris Pilgrim