The San Francisco based First District Court of Appeal upheld the San Mateo trial judge’s ruling that Michael Ni, a founder of Verafirma, did not submit a valid signed initiative petition when he attempted to submit his petition on a USB flash drive. As quoted at NBCBayArea.com:
Justice Sandra Margulies wrote, “The Legislature did not anticipate the use of electronic signatures when it drafted the statute and has since taken no action that can be construed as approving them for this purpose. “
“The Legislature…is the proper body to determine whether and how to incorporate this technology, with its new risks and equal promise, into the process of initiative endorsement.”
This is ruling stands in marked contrast to the Utah Supreme Court ruling in an earlier post. In this case the Utah judges ruled that by not making rules regarding the use of electronic signatures and by endorsing UETA, as well as “liberal interpretation” of the nominating petition they implicitly allowed electronic nominating petition signatures collected on a web site. This ruling led Utah to pass SB165 explicitly forbidding electronic signatures for ballot initiatives or nominating petitions.
These cases certainly bring up an issue. Will electronic signatures result in better government? The LA Times talks about it in today’s op-ed piece, but I think that the discussion is just beginning. What do you think?
Posted by Mike Ambrose 
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