petition

Update at 10:05 a.m. — An additional 54 petition sheets have just been submitted to the county clerk’s office, and another batch may be on the way, we’re told.

Update at 12:05 p.m. — Unofficial signature count from the first batch: 15,482.

Update at 4:00 p.m. — The county clerk has received a final batch of three petition sheets. Applying the average number of signatures per sheet from the initial batch, the 57 sheets submitted today should yield about 1,254 signatures, for a rough total of 16,736 signatures submitted. That’s 2,385 more than the 14,350 signatures required by law. The big question going forward: will it be enough to make up for the inevitable number of invalid signatures?

Update at 4:15 p.m. — Committee for a Better Arlington representative: “We’re very happy with the number [of signatures] we turned in today and we’re looking forward to being on the ballot in November.”

Update at 5:00 p.m. — Statement from the Coalition for Arlington Good Government, which opposes the change-of-government proposal: “CAGG has confidence in the Registrar’s ability to complete this step in a thorough, accurate manner. If the proposed referendum gets on the ballot, CAGG remains committed to ongoing voter education efforts. CAGG looks forward to continuing a community dialogue about how to promote good government in Arlington.”

Update at 11:00 p.m. — Election officials say they have verified 1,548 names so far.

Arlington County election personnel are conducting an initial count of signatures on change-of-government petitions. A total of 704 double-sided petition sheets were submitted to the county yesterday morning.

The initial count should be completed within an hour. Change-of-government supporters have told the county to expect another batch of petitions to be submitted by the end-of-the-day deadline.

After the deadline, county workers will begin the monumental task of verifying each name by hand. That is expected to take until August 9 or 10, said county registrar Linda Lindberg.

Despite earlier talk of bringing in elections personnel from other jurisdictions to help out, Lindberg said she expects to be able to complete the verification with existing staff members.

The last time a petition made its way through Arlington was 1993.

Actually, there were two petitions. One was to change the school board from an appointed body to an elected body. That measure would ultimately be approved by voters in a referendum. Another proposal, which received enough petition signatures but ultimately not enough referendum votes, was to allow off-track betting parlors in the county.

Supporters of a proposed change in the county’s form of government submitted their petitions to the Clerk of the Arlington County Circuit Court this morning, the Sun Gazette first reported.

A formal hand-off of the petitions from the clerk to Arlington County General Registrar Linda Lindberg, whose department will verify the signatures, will take place at 9:00 tomorrow morning, the county said in a statement. Supporters need 14,350 valid signatures to get the proposal on the November ballot.

The Coalition for Arlington Good Government (CAGG), formed to actively oppose a proposed change in Arlington County’s form of government, is calling on supporters of the change-of-government referendum to submit the signatures they have gathered early.

Citing an ARLnow.com story in which a volunteer signature-gatherer commented that supporters have already gathered the necessary 14,350 signatures, CAGG co-chair Alan Howze wrote:

In the interest of good government and transparency, we call upon the referendum proponents to immediately submit the petitions that they have collected to Arlington’s Voter Registrar for review. Submitting the signatures now will not change the outcome, but further delays by referendum supporters in submitting petition signatures will impose additional expenses on Arlington taxpayers for overtime labor.

An earlier article by the Sun Gazette revealed that submitting all the signatures at once at the July 15 deadline could result in delays and extra expense for the county.

Update on 6/6 — An insider confirms to ARLnow.com that paid signature gatherers have been supporting the change-of-government petition drive for the past several weeks. The insider says that using full-time signature gatherers is not uncommon in politics and is necessary due to the large number of signatures (14,350) required to get the issue on the ballot.

It looks like change-of-government supporters may be bringing in some hired guns to help with the daunting task of collecting more than 14,000 signatures by July 15.

According to a Craigslist ad, sent to us by an anonymous tipster, professional signature gatherers are being hired for $100 to $125 per day to “get an issue on the ballot” in Arlington County. The only Arlington ballot effort we’re aware of is the Committee for a Better Arlington‘s campaign to change the Arlington County form of government from a county manager-centric system to a system where the county board has more executive powers.

The ad was apparently posted by a Colorado-based “petition management firm,” headed by a “young political strategist” who “has managed the collection of signatures in 22 different states.”

The Committee for a Better Arlington has not responded to a request for comment on the listing.

A copy of the ad, after the jump.

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