PAN Submits Sigs

NEWS & ANALYSIS

PAN Submits 190,000 Signatures

As the clock struck 12 on the drive to get initiatives qualified for the November ballot, the Protect Arizona Now (PAN) organization submitted more than 190,000 signatures Thursday. The required number of valid signatures was 122,600. Signatures will be validated by the Arizona Secretary of State's office.

Aided by a coalition of immigration reform organizations, PAN submitted 190,887 signatures.

The PAN Committee submitted 40,866 signatures. The coalition, consisting of the Federation of Americans for Immigration Reform (FAIR), the FAIR Congressional Task Force, Americans for Better Immigration, POPSTOP, and Americans for Immigration Control, Inc., submitted another 150,019 signatures. These organizations came in late in the process and injected some $400,000 to hire signature gatherers when it was apparent that PAN was not going to succeed merely with volunteers.

Rusty Childress, treasurer for the PAN Committee, said, "Internal audits indicate a high rate of valid signatures among those turned in to the Secretary of State. Backers of the initiative, which would bar illegal aliens in Arizona from receiving non-emergency state benefits, are optimistic that the PAN initiative will qualify for the November ballot."

"Governments on all levels — local, state, and federal — should hang their heads in shame to make the people of Arizona go through this ordeal because governments arrogantly refuse to do their duties," Kathy McKee, chairman of the Protect Arizona Now campaign, told the Associated Press.

The Protect Arizona Now initiative, if qualified for the ballot and if passed by voters in November, will require proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote and proof of identification to cast ballots at Arizona's polling places. The identification requirement would not apply to voters casting early ballots by mail. It would be a misdemeanor and four-month jail sentence for a state or local government employee failing to report immigration violations by applicants for government services not federally required.