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Lawsuit seeks to have electronic signatures considered valid on petitionsPALO ALTO, Calif, Mar 17, 2010 (The Palo Alto Daily News - McClatchy-Tribune News Service via COMTEX) -- A major change in California's century-old voter initiative process could be on the line Thursday when a San Mateo County judge presides over a debate about whether it is legal for California voters to sign a statewide initiative petition digitally through a mobile device's touch screen. The case pits Michael Ni, co-founder of a Silicon Valley start-up that has developed software for capturing electronic signatures, against government officials who say the election code does not allow for the technology. "If you can gather signatures online and get around the political establishment, it's just one more way to bring about change in California," said Bill Whalen, a research fellow at the Hoover Institute at Stanford who follows California politics. Ni sued the county last month after Assessor-Clerk-Recorder Warren Slocum rejected an electronic signature Ni had captured using the software from his company, Verafirma, and submitted on a USB drive to qualify an initiative to legalize and tax marijuana. Slocum said he supports the technology but could not determine whether the signature met the requirements of state elections laws, which is why he rejected it. In court documents, the county argues that Ni signed an iPhone, then had Verafirma's software "stamp" his signature onto a digital image of a petition, violating the elections code requirement that a voter "personally affix" his or her signature to a petition. Ni's lawsuit asks a judge to order Slocum to accept the electronic signature, arguing that it meets all the requirements of signing an initiative petition even though electronic signatures aren't explicitly mentioned in the law. Verafirma's software allows a user to visit a Web site for a petition and sign it using a finger on the touch screen of an iPhone. "Rather, by not placing in the elections code an 'ink' or 'paper' requirement as other states have, the Legislature wisely left the method of signing open to innovation," wrote Steven Churchwell, Ni's attorney. Slocum's decision is backed by the California Secretary of State's office, which filed a "friend of the court" brief in the case. While Verafirma's founders say electronic signatures are more secure than handwritten ones, county and state officials counter that the technology hasn't been tested to prove it's fraud-proof. "The complex issues presented in permitting use of electronic devices and the Internet to sign initiative petitions are best resolved in total by the Legislature, not in an incremental basis by the court in this case," wrote Deputy Attorney General Hiren Patel, who is representing the Secretary of State's Office. Though Judge George Miram is expected to hear arguments from both sides, it is unclear whether he will rule Thursday on the legality of Ni's signature. If "e-signatures" are found to be valid, they could "change the playing field enormously for how initiatives are qualified in California," said Kim Alexander, president and founder of the California Voter Foundation, a non-partisan group that advocates for technology that enhances the democratic process. Allowing signatures to be gathered using the Internet could dramatically lower the cost of initiative campaigns, which generally must raise at least $1 million and sometimes $3 million or more to hire professional signature-gathering companies to qualify an initiative, Alexander said. (EDITORS: STORY CAN END HERE) One recent example is the failed effort to qualify two state initiatives that would have called for a constitutional convention to reform state government. The group backing the measures, Repair California, shelved its campaign last month because it could not raise the several million dollars needed to place them on the ballot. Part of the challenge was that some experienced signature-gatherers refused to work on behalf of Repair California for fear of alienating other clients _ including special interest groups in Sacramento _ who opposed changing state government, said John Grubb, former campaign director for Repair California. Though gathering signatures online could circumvent the political establishment, taking money out of the equation could also make it easier to qualify initiatives in a state that some say is already overwhelmed with too many ballot measures. Electronic signatures "definitely would have helped us collect signatures more expeditiously," Grubb said. "It probably would help a lot of people, which may not be a good thing." ___ (c) 2010, Palo Alto Daily News (Palo Alto, Calif.). 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