The latest article in The Tribune regarding the outrageous attempts of the GOP-recruited signature gatherers is astounding.
It’s laughable the comments made by the GOP Party Chair Rob Axson that these signature gatherers have been “trained” and there’s no pressure pitches or deceptive practices being employed. Axson chooses instead to point fingers at the all-to-familiar response: the “opposition.”
Judging by the number of complaints and persons who are in distress because they were manipulated into signing something they didn’t want to, the signature gathering should stop immediately and be reviewed. Let people remove their names if need be. After an internal review by all the county clerks and the lieutenant governor; perhaps then the signature gathering could resume.
But it needs to start from scratch. The constant deception and manipulation by the GOP is becoming the baseline for how they seem to operate. Perhaps if the signature gathering resumes, let’s have a third party oversee it.
From Judge Gibson’s 11-page decision to reject the GOP proposal: “because it not only failed to adhere to neutral map-drawing criteria under Proposition 4 (a 2018 voter-approved ballot initiative that created an independent redistricting process) to the greatest extent practicable, but also because it was drawn with political data — which is also a violation of Proposition 4.”
This self appointed group used GOP-favored demographics and information, then tried to obfuscate where and how they got it. Let’s stop the signature gathering until we can do it truthfully with full disclosure.
Suzanne Wheaton, Millcreek
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