November 8th Boulder voters passed Issue 2G 71 to 29%! My apologies for not sharing this before.
TheTBoulder City Clerk near the end of the City Council study session 12/11 announced a tentative schedule:
1. They will make available in the first quarter of 2019, electronic petition signing, called eSign, of Boulder initiative and referendum and recall petitions using iPads, as Denver and DC have already done:
http://303software.com/eSign
Because Issue 2E also passed, signatures required for a Boulder Initiative this year will be more like 3400 instead of 4400. But you'll still need petitioners to pass either eSign or paper petitions.
eSign does have the advantage of letting you register to vote on the spot or update your address. Because of that they're getting 95% valid signatures instead of the typical 70%. That way you know much more closely how many valid signatures you've collected, and therefore when you are safe to stop collecting.
2. In the third quarter of 2019 they will hear from a technical working group and decide about true ONLINE petitions, which you can sign 24/7 from anywhere and have other advantages like being able to "unsign" if you change your mind. Because ID is by driver's license as with voter registration, the county clerk or Secretary of State would save the cost of comparing physical signatures.
State Rep. Edie Hooton (roughly Eastern Boulder and Boulder County) emailed me 12/9 to say:
"I'm meeting with stakeholders next week to discuss four voter access bills that I'm considering for 2019 session: National Popular Vote, On Line Petitioning/E verify, Depoliticizing county offices of of assessor, surveyor, and coroner, and Financial Disclosure of Presidential candidates."
Anyone who knows Edie, or Jared Polis, who has SAID he is supportive of this, or our new Secretary of State Jena Griswold, please chat them up about online petitions! Petitions on the Secretary of State's website would be a real game-changer, the biggest improvement to direct democracy in this country ever. This could quickly spread to the 16 or more states that have both ballot initiatives and online voter registration.
Thanks again for helping us, and feel free to spread the news. Anyone contemplating a Boulder ballot initiative will want to know.
-Evan
You can see Council's study session: https://youtu.be/17_G6lsX90c
City Clerk Lynette Beck announces implementation of ballot issues 2E, 2F and 2G starting at 3:30:20 in (9:30 PM on the clock on screen)