Split Newport council won’t require paid petition circulators to file anti-fraud affidavits

Paid petition circulators working for local initiatives will not need to file anti-fraud affidavits in the city of Newport Beach.

The City Council, on a split vote Tuesday night, narrowly defeated a proposal to add that layer, which proponents said would be nominal and limited to paid signature gatherers contracted for local actions, like last year’s unsuccessful attempt to recall Councilman Scott Peotter.

Mayor Pro Tem Will O’Neill, Councilman Kevin Muldoon and Mayor Marshall Duffield voted in support of the idea. Council members Diane Dixon, Jeff Herdman and Brad Avery voted against it. Peotter abstained.

The 3-3 tie meant the proposal failed.

In the Peotter recall case, the group seeking his ouster did not submit enough valid signatures to force a special recall election, according to the Orange County registrar of voters office. Later, the county district attorney’s office seized the recall petitions over concerns about “potential irregularities.”

The firm the recall committee hired to handle the petitions admitted that about 50 signatures might have been forged and has cooperated with the DA’s office, though it denied the city’s suggestion that it violated a provision of state elections law that the city recently hoped to add to its own code — a requirement that signature gatherers submit affidavits intended to prevent fraud and abuse.

O’Neill said the requirement would improve transparency in local initiatives and that “the only additional burden to [paid signature gatherers] will be pressing the copy button once and sending it to our clerk.”

City Attorney Aaron Harp said the proposal was intended to make sure professional petition circulators know the rules. He said it would protect initiative proponents’ interests as well because signatures that are tossed for being forged can make or break a petition drive.

“I would think this would have universal support, that everybody would want everyone involved to know what the rules are,” Harp said.

Dixon called the proposed code addition “make-work” that was in search of a problem she wasn’t sure existed.

In February, the council invoked its charter-authorized power of subpoena to conduct an investigation paralleling the DA’s and filed an order for the petition management firm, Calabasas-based PCI Consultants Inc., to hand over documents related to the recall signature gathering.

Supporters of the probe said they wanted to see whether local or state laws had been broken and to identify possible ways to strengthen the integrity of local elections.

The city said this month that its investigation suggested violations of state code but did not find violations of local code.

PCI Consultants President Angelo Paparella said last week that the company complies with all elections codes.

Dixon said that without knowing the breadth or depth of a possible problem, she didn’t see the need for an “addition of something that’s already in state law.”

Herdman said the proposed local code addition appeared to be a restriction on residents’ constitutional right to petition and that it could be ineffective besides.

“How is adding this additional layer of bureaucracy and requirements going to prevent this from happening again?” he said. “You establish a law, people break laws all the time.”

Muldoon said a law-and-order town can’t watch fraud happen without speaking up.

“These gross exaggerations about someone’s constitutional rights being stolen — you know whose constitutional rights were stolen? The individuals, the 50 or so ... people whose names were falsely used without their consent for fraudulent ends,” he said.

hillary.davis@latimes.com

Twitter: @Daily_PilotHD