Tricks on petitions described by worker - Student employed to gather names
By Kathleen A. Shaw, Worcester Telegram & Gazette | October 13, 2005
WORCESTER - A 21-year-old Florida college student who spent more than two weeks in Massachusetts collecting signatures for initiative petitions at stores and shopping malls said in an interview that she quit the job because of what she described as "sleazy" tactics used to obtain signatures.
Angela McElroy told the Telegram & Gazette that she took the job with the Florida-based petition-gathering firm JSM Inc. after a friend told her about making money by working on petition drives throughout the country. Upon taking the job, she said she was told her goal was to collect as many signatures as possible "and leave the state before the dust settles."
Allegations of improprieties in Massachusetts petition drives made in the past few weeks have stirred controversy and the attention of state legislators, the state attorney general's office and the secretary of state's office.
While employed by the firm, Ms. McElroy said, she saw one of her co-workers forge signatures from one petition to the other at the Square One Mall in Saugus, re-creating the original signer's handwriting and address. She said she questioned the co-worker about what he was doing and was told that he was boosting his earnings by transferring signatures from petition A, which would allow wine sales in grocery stories, to petition K, which would put a ban on same-sex marriages on the ballot.
After she quit, Ms. McElroy contacted KnowThyNeighbor.org., the state attorney general's office and Tom Lang, an organizer of KnowThyNeighbor. Corey Welford, a spokesman for Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly, said the attorney general will not comment on complaints they have gotten alleging fraudulent tactics in gathering signatures.
Ms. McElroy returned to the state last night and said she is ready to testify at a legislative hearing scheduled for Tuesday and to meet with investigators from the state attorney general's office.
Ms. McElroy said employees were paid $1 per signature they obtained if the number was less than 500 names. The amount rose to $1.50 a signature if the gatherer produced 500 or more names. They were paid twice a week, she said; she said some employees did exceptionally well financially.
Jennifer Breslin, who operates JSM, declined to be interviewed, citing contractual agreements with firms and groups sponsoring petition drives. She did say that Ms. McElroy was an independent contractor assigned to a petition crew in Massachusetts, and was "asked to leave." Ms. Breslin said the Florida woman did not actually work for her company. Ms. Breslin also defended the reputation of her company, and said all its signature collections were conducted legally.
Ms. McElroy said petition workers who attract unwanted media attention are quickly sent out of the state. She said one worker was on television news when allegations of fraudulent tactics first surfaced in Massachusetts and was working in another state within days.
JSM paid for Ms. McElroy's plane fare from Florida to Massachusetts, motel rooms and $20 per day for food, she said, but said she was expected to pay those expenses back out of her earnings. When she quit, she was told to find her own way home, she said. She arrived at her parents home in Tallahassee on Saturday.
Ms. McElroy said she had taken the semester off from her courses at Tallahassee Community College and Florida State University.
While on the job, Ms. McElroy told the T&G, co-workers informed her she could make more money if she induced people first to sign petition A regarding wine sales, then slip the petition to ban same-sex marriage underneath and ask unsuspecting people to sign the second copy without telling them what it concerned.
The Florida woman worked with a crew out of the Red Roof Inn in Saugus. She said workers were transported daily to places around the state, including Worcester, adding that she spent one day working two stores in Worcester.
She said she was told that when a petition drive is drawing to a close and too few signatures have been collected, the company would ask for more money from whoever was paying them to gather signatures.
The workers were never told who was paying the company to collect the signatures.
A spokesman for state Sen. Edward M. Augustus, D-Worcester, co-chairman of the Joint Legislative Committee on Election Laws, said committee representatives intend to speak with Ms. McElroy before a legislative hearing at the Statehouse at 2:30 p.m. Tuesday to investigate the allegations of fraudulent tactics. Mr. Augustus has asked that Central Massachusetts residents who believe they were victimized by fraudulent techniques call his office at (617) 722-1485 or send e-mail to edward.augustus@state.ma.us if they have information that they believe will be useful to the investigation.
A number of people who have said they observed such tactics have contacted the Telegram & Gazette and organizations that support legal same-sex marriage such as KnowThyNeighbor.
Michelle Tassinari, legal council for the elections division of the secretary of state's office, said she has received a written complaint from a woman in Eastern Massachusetts who believes she was a victim of a "bait and switch" that also involved signing a voter registration card.
The woman told Ms. Tassinari that she signed one petition and then told the collector that she had moved and may not be registered to vote in her community. The signature collector then said that was no problem and pulled out a voter registration card, asked her to sign it, and said that would insure that she legally could sign the petition.
Once the woman signed the voter registration card, she was then handed another piece of paper and was asked to sign.
The woman said she now realizes that she signed another petition without realizing it. She thought after signing the voter registration card that she was resigning the original petition.
In a related matter, Lunenburg Police Lt. James Marino said Tuesday that police on Oct. 2 arrested a petition signature gatherer working for what he said was a California-based company called Arno Political Consultants when he refused to leave the Wal-Mart store in that town. Police were called to the store after receiving a call from the manager saying a man was creating a disturbance outside and was blocking the doorway. Police attempted to get the man to leave peacefully but he appeared to be "out of control" and was waving a document from the secretary of state's office which he claimed were his work rules.
Lt. Marino said the document called "Solicitation of Signatures in Public Places'' was read by police and they determined the man was breaking all of them. Mark Rohbraugh, 27, of 9817 Sprague St., Omaha, Neb., was arrested and charged with being disorderly, resisting arrest and trespassing after Wal-Mart management asked him to leave in the presence of police officers and he refused. He was released on personal recognizance and arraigned Oct. 3 in Fitchburg District Court.
Mr. Rohbraugh had a sign indicating he was collecting signatures for the beer and wine petition, Lt. Marino said.
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