Post a Comment On: Vigilance

We just got news through the grapevine that the Court of Appeals will hear the case.

The Montgomery County Board of Elections certified petitions calling for a referendum on the gender identity nondiscrimination law, even though there were very many errors on them, including apparent fraud and forgery. The Board argued that it's not their job to check whether signatures are forged or otherwise meet legal requirements, they said they're only supposed to see if the names are those of registered voters.

The group that submitted the petitions did not have the number required by law, which is five percent of registered voters. Nevertheless, the Board determined that the referendum should be held.

A Circuit Court judge heard arguments and ruled that it was okay if signatures failed to meet the legal standard in some cases. He also verified that the petitions did not have a sufficient number of signatures, but said that the complaint had been filed too late so it didn't matter.

Plaintiffs in the case, a group of MoCo citizens, appealed the ruling, and yesterday we learned that the court has decided to hear the case.

Here is the schedule as it's proposed so far:
August 20: Plaintiff's brief
August 28: BOE brief
September 3: Plaintiff's reply/cross-appellee brief
September 5: Cross-appellee reply brief
September 8: Oral arguments
A decision needs to be made pretty soon. Ballots need to be printed up, and if the court decides to allow the referendum there will be a lot of educating to do, gigantic campaigns on both sides, money to raise, publicity to put out. Attorney Jonathan Shurberg will argue this case for the plaintiffs.