Organizers Appear to Have Time to Make Up Shortfalls in Donations and Signatures

On Saturday, the Los Angeles Times reported that the Republican-backed effort to give about 20 of California’s 55 Electoral College votes next year is lagging both in fundraising and in the number of signatures required to place the measure on the ballot next June:

As deadlines came and went, backers of [the initiative] continued struggling Friday to gather enough signatures to place the measure before voters.

Organizers had set this week as a deadline for wrapping up their petition drive, but said they had not raised the roughly $2 million needed to pay petition circulators. Secretary of State Debra Bowen had recommended a deadline of Nov. 29.

Campaign manager Dave Gilliard said that agents would work through the weekend to obtain the 434,000 valid signatures required to put the Electoral College initiative on next June’s ballot and that he expected to submit the names by midweek.

The report says Gilliard is “less than certain” that paid signature collectors hired by the campaign would meet their goal 700,000 names this week. The 300,000 “extra” names are needed to replace invalid signatures that will be tossed out during the next step: vetting of the names and addresses by election officials in local districts.

Gilliard also told the Times that fundraising goals have not been met:

Tapping some Republican stalwarts, proponents have raised more than $1 million; the actual figure won’t become public for several days. But Gilliard said $200,000 to $250,000 more was needed to pay circulators for the signatures they have gathered.

“Until it is the bank, I don’t want to make any pronouncements,” he said.

According to the California Secretary of State’s website, the deadline for the initiative is Feb. 8, 2008, so despite the current difficulties, it appears there is technically enough time for organizers to meet both their signature-gathering and fundraising goals.

If the initiative passes and goes into effect next November, the 20 or so Electoral votes ceded to the Republican nominee — roughly the equivalent to those of the state of Ohio — would more than enough to “win” the presidency.

The life cycle of this initiative has been plagued with scandal. In October, a previous version was withdrawn after the lead organizer discovered that the campaign’s only anonymous donor was a major back of Rudolph Giuliani’s presidential campaign.

On Friday, Brad Friedman at The BRAD BLOG, interviewed Anthony F. Andrade, who proposed an earlier version that has been withdrawn. Andrade admitted that his motivation in proposing the initiative do not jive with its stated objectives:

“I’m really an anti-Hillary supporter,” he told The BRAD BLOG. “I think Bill and her are lowlifes. It’s one of those things in life…they are very yuck.”

“‘Yuck’?”, BRAD BLOG asked.

“They’re yucky people. If you look at her record in her life, it’s been a record of conflict,” he explained before describing them as “fucking assholes” and “pricks.”

“That’s the reason I’m into this. I don’t like Hillary. I’m a libertarian at heart. I’m really a Ron Paul backer in truth,” he explained.

In late October, Andrade was accused of violating federal election laws by sending an email to supporters of Rudolph Giuliani’s presidential campaign asking for their support for the initiative:

The missive … is addressed, “Hello Fellow Rudy Supporter!” Its author, Tony Andrade, is a Republican activist who helped draft the electoral college initiative. Previously, he was among those who helped place the ultimately successful recall of Gov. Gray Davis on the ballot in 2003.

Democrats battling the electoral college measure already have filed complaints with the Federal Election Commission and U.S. Justice Department alleging the Giuliani campaign is behind the initiative. If true, that would be a violation of federal election law, which prohibits such coordination….

Andrade’s e-mail included a link to the petition to qualify the initiative and urges backers to sign it and get 10 other registered voters to do the same.

Giuliani is a liberal Republican, and therefore thought to have the best chance of the GOP frontrunners of appealing to California’s independent and left-leaning Republican voters.

As shown in the video above (at minute 02:15), signature gatherers for the initiative have been using “bait and switch” tactics to attract voters to sign the petitions by first offering a petition to increase cancer funding for children.

As Rick Jacobs, founder and chair of the Courage Campaign, which is fighting the initiative told CBS News,

“The mere idea that [Republicans] would stoop so low as to use children’s cancer as the bait to get people to sign a petition about a dirty trick so they can steal the White House says everything. It’s outrageous.”