Nevada Initiative Targeted!

[Niemand]

Problems with the Nevada Initiative

CORRUPT POLITIANS TARGET NEVADA INITIATIVE

Dear Friend:

Corrupt elections officials -- who are doing the bidding of Republican
political operatives -- are threatening to keep the Marijuana Policy
Project's initiative off of the November 2 ballot in Nevada. The
following is a long account, but you're not going to believe how badly
our campaign is being sabotaged ...

If approved by Nevada voters, MPP's initiative would remove all
penalties for marijuana use by adults aged 21 and older, as well as
require the state government to authorize a system for the legal
cultivation, distribution, and sale of marijuana to adults. If
enacted, this law would be the first of its kind in the world.

We urgently need your financial support for the monumental -- but
short -- court battle that lies before us. According to MPP's records,
you have not yet made a financial donation to MPP (or the
tax-deductible MPP Foundation) in 2004. Would you please consider
visiting http://www.RegulateMarijuana.org/donate2008 to donate $10 or
more today?

On July 13, in response to communications from a high-ranking member
of the Republican National Committee, the Nevada state government
announced that MPP had turned in only 34,947 valid signatures -- far
short of the 51,337 valid signatures that are needed to qualify our
initiative for the ballot.

The government's signature count is nothing short of corrupt and
illegal. We turned in 66,000 gross signatures on June 15. We know
that 85% of the signatures we submitted in Washoe and Clark Counties
are valid, and we know that more than 65% of the signatures we
submitted in the 15 rural counties are valid.

Washoe and Clark Counties, which include Reno and Las Vegas,
respectively, together comprise 85% of the state's population; not
surprisingly, 85% of our gross signatures came from these two
counties, while 15% of the gross signatures came from the 15 rural
counties. Doing the math, this means that 54,120 of the signatures we
turned in are actually valid, which comfortably exceeds the
51,337-signature requirement.

So how is it that the state government can claim that we fell more
than 16,000 valid signatures short of the 51,337-signature goal?

------------------------------

First, Clark County -- at the urging of the Republicans -- threw out
19,830 signatures because of a previously unenforced "requirement"
that alleges that one voter who signs each petition booklet must fill
out and notarize the affidavit at the back of the booklet.

There are some problems with this new "requirement": (1) the state
had ignored it in previous election cycles; (2) when Republicans
urged the elections officials of all 17 counties to apply this new
"requirement," 16 of the 17 counties rightly ignored the request,
with only Clark County bowing to the pressure; and (3) the AFL-CIO,
whose initiative was also being threatened for the same reason,
succeeded in court yesterday at blocking the "requirement" from taking
effect.

MPP will now jump on the AFL-CIO's coattails and enjoy the same
benefits of their court victory, which means that our 19,830
signatures will be thrown back into the mix.

If you're starting to get angry, please channel that energy by angrily
making a donation at http://www.RegulateMarijuana.org/donate2008
today.

------------------------------

And the legal battle isn't over ...

Clark County elections officials also threw out thousands of
additional signatures from people who allegedly weren't registered
voters. But we know they were properly registered to vote -- because
we registered them and photocopied their voter-registration forms
before turning them in.

We're developing a legal strategy to get the courts to certify that
these signatures are, in fact, valid. If we win this court battle,
our initiative will be placed on the November 2 ballot.

Please help us pay the legal fees for all of this litigation -- which
could cost as much as $50,000 -- by visiting
http://www.RegulateMarijuana.org/donate2008 today.

------------------------------

But wait, there is still more malfeasance on the part of government
officials ...

The Humboldt County elections office reported that only 43% of our
signatures in that county were valid. After our campaign pointed out
a series of errors, the elections office adjusted the validity rate
upwards to 53%.

(This is after our petitioners had to send in six different teams to
Humboldt County because the sheriff illegally and repeatedly ran them
out of the county ... and then offered cookies and Gatorade to
petitioners he determined were not working for the marijuana
initiative.)

If you haven't already, would you please visit
http://www.RegulateMarijuana.org/donate2008 today? Suing and
checking the work of corrupt elections officials wasn't part of our
original budget or plan.

Will we have to check the work of the elections officials in all 17
counties to ensure that the others aren't malfeasant or incompetent?
Speaking of incompetence ...

------------------------------

To our horror, five days after the June 15 deadline for turning in the
signatures our consulting firm had collected, a box of 6,000
signatures was found in the firm's Las Vegas office. This is why the
gross signature count was as low as 66,000; the consulting firm had
actually collected 72,000 signatures.

We do not yet know whether an employee of the firm inadvertently
misplaced the box and then found it later, or whether the consulting
firm was sabotaged from within. What we do know is that the box was
found sitting on a chair in plain view on June 20.

And, of course, we fired the consulting firm that was responsible for
this mistake.

While it appears likely that our initiative will qualify for the
ballot, MPP is displeased and embarrassed about the 6,000-signature
debacle, which reflects badly on our campaign and MPP as an
organization. And we're disheartened that government officials are
using their power in an attempt to thwart the elections process.

I have laid out all of these details for you because MPP is
straightforward and honest with our members and allies -- especially
when things go wrong.

------------------------------

Even before state government officials announced last week that they
wouldn't be qualifying our initiative for the ballot, everyone in the
media and political establishment had declared our initiative dead
because, typically, only 70% of signatures on initiative petitions are
found to be valid. If 70% had been our validity rate statewide, we
would have ended up with only 46,200 valid signatures -- far short of
the 51,337 that we need.

But we have known all along that our validity rate would be much
higher, because we were so meticulous about ensuring that people who
signed our petitions were actually registered voters. And, indeed,
we've been proven correct; as I mentioned above, Washoe County (which
includes Reno) certified that a record-breaking 85% of the gross
signatures were found to be valid!

We'll be fighting in court for the next three weeks. If you want to
help us in this battle, your financial support at
http://www.RegulateMarijuana.org/donate2008 would be very much
appreciated.

With your help, we will continue to fight, fight, fight.

Thank you for taking the time to read this far. I'll send you another
(shorter) update in a week ...

Sincerely,

Rob Kampia
Executive Director
Marijuana Policy Project
Washington, D.C.

======================================================================

The Marijuana Policy Project hopes that each of the 110,000
subscribers on this e-mail list will make at least one financial
donation to MPP's work in 2004. According to our records, you have not
yet donated this year. Would you please consider making one donation
this year by visiting http://www.mpp.org/donate2008 today?

As a part of this campaign, we hope that 500 volunteers will each
commit to raising $1,000 from their friends and colleagues, with
another 250 volunteers committing to raise $2,000 each. Please see
http://www.mpp.org/Pioneers to sign up for this campaign. (Since MPP
launched this campaign on May 4, 59 people have signed up.)

MPP will be able to tackle all of the projects in its 2004 strategic
plan -- http://www.mpp.org/2004plan -- if you and other allies are
generous enough to donate and/or raise the following sums in 2004:

TYPE OF DONOR ..... $ GOALS FOR 2004 ..... $ RAISED IN 2004
-----------------------------------------------------------
monthly pledgers ........ $52,000 ............ $42,459 ....
less than $1,000 ....... $446,000 ........... $146,794 ....
$1,000 to $1,999 ....... $500,000 ............ $21,245 ....
$2,000 to $2,999 ....... $500,000 ............. $6,500 ....
$3,000 to $24,999 ...... $100,000 ............ $47,706 ....
$25,000 to $99,999 ..... $300,000 ........... $135,000 ....
$100,000 and up ...... $1,600,000 ........... $130,000 ....
-----------------------------------------------------------
TOTALS ............... $3,498,000 ........... $529,705 ....

 

[I.M. Boggled]

Nevada Judges order means initiative may make ballot.

Nevada Judges order means initiative may make ballot.

Source: Las Vegas Sun
Published: August 02, 2004

Carson City, Nevada --
U.S. District Judge James Mahan issued a temporary restraining order Friday stopping the state from taking any further action on the marijuana initiative petition that is short of the necessary signatures needed to qualify for the ballot.

Mahan has set Aug. 13 as the date for oral arguments on the suit by the Nevada chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union and the groups supporting the petition to allow adults to possess and use one ounce of marijuana.

Allen Lichtenstein, the Las Vegas lawyer for the ACLU, said the judge wanted to keep the status quo and said the temporary restraining order prevents any more action by Secretary of State Dean Heller that might disqualify the petition.

The group wants the judge to order Heller to put the issue on the November ballot.

"This is a really good sign," said Jennifer Knight, spokeswoman for the Committee to Regulate and Control Marijuana. "The fact that this judge issued a temporary restraining order in our case means that it has merit."

In the meantime, the committee is continuing its campaign, including television ads and meeting with community groups.

"We're planning for success," Knight said.

Renee Parker, chief deputy secretary of state, said keeping the status quo means the petition still failed to qualify. She said the initiative has 50,088 valid signatures and needs 51,337 to qualify for the ballot.

Parker said the secretary of state's office followed the orders of District Judge Bill Maddox of Carson City who ruled that signatures on petitions which did not contain the affidavit signed by a registered voter must be counted. In the case of the marijuana petition, slightly more than 15,000 signatures were added after the ruling.

The decision by Maddox was delivered in reference to the petitions to raise the minimum wage and to prevent frivolous suits. Parker said the office then applied the ruling to the marijuana petition but it still came up short.

Heller said he is going to appeal the Maddox ruling to the Nevada Supreme Court.

The suit by the ACLU, the Marijuana Policy Project and the Committee to regulate and Control Marijuana, challenges a section in the Nevada Constitution that requires an initiative petition have 10 percent of the voters in 13 of the 17 counties to sign the documents.

The suit also challenges the decision of Clark County Registrar of Voters Larry Lomax to exclude the signatures of those who registered to vote on the same day they signed the petition. That totaled 2,039 signatures.

Parker said the petition only succeeded in 12 of the 17 counties. In Clark County petition supporters fell short of the required 31,350 names by about 4,500 signatures.

Parker said she's "starting to wonder if we can pull it off" with all the lawsuits and challenges on the initiative petitions. "It's pretty scary," she said.

The county clerks need to have the final language on the proposed constitutional questions by Sept. 1 to get the absentee and sample ballots printed for the general election.

On the marijuana issue, she said there is no committee yet to write the pros and cons on the ballot question. Arguments before Judge James Mahan are scheduled for Aug. 13, she said. The state Attorney General's Office Friday filed a motion with the Nevada Supreme Court for an expedited handling of the appeal on the ruling of the District Court to put the minimum wage and the frivolous law suit initiatives on the ballot.

 

[Pacridge]

I am not a rich man...

I am not a rich man...

I'm not Rich, in fact I'm Steve. And I don't have much cash since an injury a few years back but I'm sending ya $20 just the same. These lying sleeze bags who scream they're all about freedom and then do every low down dirty underhanded trick they can think of to stop the democratic process must be stopped. Least that's my 2 cent, or $20.

Come on guys lets cough up what we can. 1, 5, 10 what ever ya got, these bastards gotta be stopped!

 

[I.M. Boggled]

NEVADA JUDGE PUTS MARIJUANA INITIATIVE BACK IN PLAY!

NEVADA JUDGE PUTS MARIJUANA INITIATIVE BACK IN PLAY!

AUGUST 15, 2004:

The Marijuana Policy Project won a major victory in federal court on August 13 against Nevada's Secretary of State, who told the Las Vegas Sun that the ruling is "bringing us to our knees," continuing, "We're not killed yet but it took us out."

The court ruling triggers a statewide recount of the 66,000 gross signatures that MPP turned in two months ago. Between now and August 31, low-level government workers in 16 counties will be working overtime to determine if we submitted the 51,337 valid signatures that are needed to qualify MPP's marijuana initiative for the November 2 ballot.

Government workers (with our oversight) need to find only 1,400 valid signatures over and above the 50,000 signatures that are currently estimated to be valid. This is only a 3% boost. We can do this. How do I know?

In one rural Nevada county, the elections office originally reported that only 43% of our signatures in that county were valid. After our campaign pointed out a series of errors, the elections office adjusted the validity rate upwards to 53% -- a full 10% boost.

http://www.regulatemarijuana.org/corrupt/index.php?ref=498

 

[I.M. Boggled]

About the Nevada Initiative...

About the Nevada Initiative...

The Committee to Regulate and Control Marijuana (CRCM), a Nevada campaign committee affiliated with the national Marijuana Policy Project, has submitted 66,000 signatures to place a marijuana regulation initiative on the November 2 ballot. If passed by Nevada voters, the initiative would:

1. eliminate the threat of arrest and jail for adults aged 21 and older who responsibly use and possess up to one ounce of marijuana (which is the equivalent of one-and-a-half packs of cigarettes);

2. direct the state legislature to regulate the manufacture, taxation, and sale of marijuana, whereby establishments that are licensed to sell tobacco will also be permitted to sell marijuana, provided that they neither sell alcohol nor are within 500 yards of a school or place of worship;

3. earmark marijuana-related tax revenues to alcohol and drug treatment and education;

4. maintain penalties for underage marijuana use, smoking marijuana in public, using or possessing marijuana on school grounds or in prisons, and transporting marijuana across state lines;

5. increase penalties for providing marijuana to minors, as well as for motorists who kill someone while under the influence of alcohol, marijuana, or any other substance; and

6. take effect on December 5, 2006, if a majority of Nevada voters pass the initiative in November 2004 and again in November 2006. (December 5, 1933, is the date that the U.S. repealed alcohol prohibition nationally.)

This Initiative would benefit Nevadans in numerous ways. It would:

* Reduce teen marijuana use. In Nevada, 67% of high school students have used marijuana. By contrast, in the Netherlands, where marijuana is sold in regulated, indoor establishments to adults who are carded for age verification, only 28% of teenagers have used marijuana. The Nevada initiative would reduce teen access to marijuana by (1) taking it off the streets and regulating it, and (2) sending adults to prison who sell marijuana to children.

* Allow police to focus on serious crimes. By removing marijuana from the criminal market, the initiative would free up police time so police officers can focus on violent crimes, property crimes, and people who drive under the influence of alcohol, marijuana, or any other substance. Victims of violent crimes are clamoring for this shift in police priorities. According to the latest FBI statistics, Nevada's violent-crime rate is 7th highest among the 50 states.

* Generate tax revenues for drug education and treatment. The initiative requires that adults who use marijuana legally in the privacy of their homes must obtain their marijuana from legally regulated businesses, thereby generating tax revenues for the state rather than profits for drug dealers. According to a study released by the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, regulating marijuana would generate $28 million in annual tax revenues. (You can download the study here.) The initiative would earmark this money for drug education and rehabilitation programs, which currently receive only $13.5 million annually from the state.

* Break the "gateway" to hard drugs. By taking marijuana out of the hands of drug dealers, the initiative would also reduce the use of hard drugs in Nevada. Currently, adults who obtain marijuana from the criminal market are also exposed to cocaine, heroin, methamphetamines, and other drugs. After the November 2004 ballot initiative is passed and implemented, adults who use marijuana will obtain it from regulated, indoor establishments instead of having to resort to the criminal market.

* Make the roads safer. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the number of alcohol-related auto fatalities in Nevada rose 29% from 2001 to 2002. And 45% of car-crash deaths in Nevada were alcohol-related -- the 10th highest rate in the nation. By liberating the police from having to hunt down marijuana users, the initiative would allow police to spend more time on the roadways to crack down on dangerous drivers, whether they are under the influence of marijuana, alcohol, or any other substance. And, if a motorist kills someone while under the influence of marijuana or any other substance, the initiative would keep the person off the roads by putting them in prison for five years to life.

Nevada's current marijuana laws are costly, they have failed to prevent teenagers from using marijuana, and they keep police from focusing on DUI and other real crimes. Bringing marijuana into a regulated system will serve all Nevadans well.