Spring has sprung in Boulder County and that means not only daffodils & tulips but signature gathering for petitions! If you’re a City of Boulder resident be sure to check out the new online petition system at Boulder Direct Democracy Online.
There are a few key points to know about signing a City of Boulder petition online:
- Your phone number must be publicly listed. The two-factor authentication relies on publicly listed phone numbers.
- You cannot un-sign an online petition once you’ve signed it.
- The system will allow you to sign an online petition only once.
- The Boulder Direct Democracy Online system does not store or use any confidential voter data.
- Petitions with a status of OPEN are still gathering signatures. A CLOSED petition has reached the end of its circulation period or has been submitted for certification and can no longer accept signatures.
- Online petitions are available in English and Spanish.
- If you don’t want to sign online, contact the Petition Committee Group to see if they’re gathering signatures via paper format too. Each petition includes the committee contact information under the section “Committee Members” on the introduction page.
- Online petitions may be municipal initiatives, referendums or recalls. The petition type is specified under General Information on the petition introduction page.
To sign a petition online you must be a registered voter and have a publicly listed phone number on your voter registration. So check whether or not your phone number is on your voter registration by going to the Secretary of State's voter registration website to find your registration:
- On Find My Voter Registration page, enter your name, zip code & birthday then click Search.
- On My Voter Registration page, click the Edit button.
- On Edit My Voter Registration page, enter your CO State Issued ID and last 4 digits of your SSN, click the Submit button.
- On Edit My Voter Registration page, scroll down to see if your phone number is listed. If it is, click the Cancel button. You can sign online petitions.
- If your number isn’t there, enter it then click the Next button until you get to the Affirmation & Signature Verification page and click Submit to save your changes.
You should receive an acknowledgement email from the Secretary of State if you updated your voter registration. It will take 2-4 days to be updated in the Secretary of State’s voter registration files. Unfortunately there’s no notification when your registration is updated, so wait at least 4 days before attempting to sign an online petition. If you still get an error when you try to sign a petition, it’s likely that your phone number is unlisted.
There is currently one active petition on the website. While LWVBC usually doesn’t take positions on petitions, we do encourage voter participation and deciding whether or not to sign a petition is part of participating in our democracy. As always,
Think Before You Ink
