Petition fraud case could spur changes in N.D. law
September 12, 2012 at 3:17 pm in Grand Forks Herald
The case of petition fraud that forced two would-be initiated measures off North Dakota’s November election ballot could prompt a change in state law, including a possible upgrade of the charge from a misdemeanor to a felony. Continue Reading
I think they would be going overboard making something like this a felony. We seem to be in a cycle where lawmakers want to make any irresponsible act a felony, which is just ridiculous.
Upping the charges and removing the ability for people to pay for signatures in my opinion would be the way to go.
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BTW I love how the poll is about ‘Election Fraud’. There is no election fraud, it was petition fraud. Completely different animal folks.
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ND could require a higher percentage of the population to initiate a measure, require a certain number from every county, increase the penalty for fraud, eliminate pay-for-hire petition and so on. But any change short of eliminating this inefficient, ineffective and costly process is putting lipstick on a pig. Get rid of it or leave it be. Don’t overreact like St. Paul would.
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Eliminate paid signature-gatherers.
What’s the penalty for forging someone’s name on a check? What’s the penalty for fraud? I don’t see why forging a name on a petition and thus committing fraud should carry a lesser penalty.
Innocent until proven guilty–the football players should still be on the football team.
Until they’re convicted, and then they should be G-O-N-E, and hopefully in prison.
Why is the other guy (indecent exposure) cancelled from the team? He hasn’t been convicted yet.
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“What’s the penalty for forging someone’s name on a check? What’s the penalty for fraud? I don’t see why forging a name on a petition and thus committing fraud should carry a lesser penalty.”
See here is where I differ.. Forging a name is an attempt to defraud someone of their personal property (ie money).. The definition of fraud is “Wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain.” While there was personal gain on their part, in that they received a pay check, all their actions would have done was brought to a vote of the people of North Dakota on a specific issue. So in all honesty there really isn’t a gain there if unless they had a vested interest in a company that produces marijuana for legal consumption or would have gained by the conservation act. (in my opinion anyway)..
I don’t think it deserves a felony charge. Misdemeanor definitely. Harsher sentence than what is currently in place, absolutely.. Remote the ability to pay for signatures.. Why are we allowing this in the first place?
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Color me surprised on the number of down votes considering the number of people who were in support of the medical mary jane bill in the first place.
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Should also be a way to hold the people who were supposed to be supervising this to fact criminal penalties. Since the fraud was so easy to spot the company should have been aware of it if they were doing their job.
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I think the fact that it’s just a misdemeanor reinforces NDSU’s decision to wait and see. Also, should students be expelled and athletes thrown off the team for a misdemeanor? Lots of opinions on both sides, but to be truly objective, I mean truly objective, suspend them for being charged with running a stop sign, too. It’s a misdemeanor, folks.
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Running a stop sign is an infraction, not a Misdemeanor.
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I’m extremely surprised this doesn’t come up “page not found.”
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Changing the ‘pay to play’ signature collection is the key to fixing this ‘problem’. Not that there really is one, outside of this isolated incident.
Regarding the NDSU debacle, short of a felony…when have they EVER kicked football or hockey players off of teams for minor/victimless offenses?
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These kids earned the maximum penalty. However, there’s always a call to increase penalties when a particular crime offends us, but cooler heads should prevail. What these kids did was dumb, illegal and a serious crime–but they were caught, exactly the way the system is supposed to work, frankly. I would hate to see us limit other groups’ abilities to get signatures just because some dumb kids got everyone angry for their one stupid act. Lock them up for a year as a deterrent to others, but don’t sacrifice the ability of constituencies to put measures on the ballot.
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Lock them up for a year for a misdemeanor. And 8 people agree with you.
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