Verafirma, a company that was set up to allow signature gathering via the iPhone and similar Apple Devices, was dealt a blow in court.

A San Mateo judge has rejected an initiative petition signature captured using an iPhone touch screen, dealing a setback to the technology’s proponents, who say it could help low-cost, grassroots initiative campaigns qualify for the ballot.

In line with a tentative ruling issued last month, San Mateo Superior Court Judge George Miram ruled that the initiative petition signature submitted by a founder of Verafirma does not meet the requirements for petition signatures set out in the state’s election code.(SacBee)

The firm, including Democratic consultant Jude Barry, was also working with a union busting initiative (that has since fizzled out) for their first test. But it looks like both sides of this dispute don’t think it is over quite yet:

Secretary of State Debra Bowen, who filed an argument in support of rejecting the signature, welcomed the judge’s ruling.

“The court was very clear and its ruling coincides with what I’ve said from the beginning. The law requires original initiative petitions containing original signatures on them to be submitted to elections officials, not virtual petitions with copies of signatures,” she said in a statement.

Barry said the company plans to appeal the ruling. “We know this is a temporary setback, but we’ve always felt that this was the beginning not the end of a legal process that we would have to go to,” he said.(SacBee)

I actually think we need to have a more regulated initiative process. While Barry argues that this software would democratize the process, I’m not so sure that a) we need more initiatives or b) that this doesn’t just save the PG&E’s of the world a million bucks.  Even with this software, it is still a big challenge to gather a million signatures.  You will still need at least a million dollars to do it. I guess this brings the cost down from corporate and tech billionaire area down to the merely very wealthy area.

I’m with our Secretary of State here, let’s hold off on this.  We need to reform the whole initiative process so that we don’t have corporations outright buying legislation (see Prop 16) and don’t have people voting to remove fundamental rights (see Prop 8).