Leader Chippendale: 2026 H8282 - Opposes Electronic Nomination Signatures - House Session (43026)

I guess I would love to have some understanding as to why this is needed. So let me pose that to whomever wants to answer it. What problem is this bill solving? Chairman Shanley will answer your question. He will yield. Thank you, Speaker. Thank you. This makes the process accessible for military and overseas voters as well as voters with disabilities and voters who live in locations that aren't accessible to canvassers. Okay. Thank you so much. This is absolutely absurd, this bill. We are talking about gathering signatures so that we can get on the ballot. I'm disabled. I don't care that someone won't ask me or it would be harder for me to sign someone's nomination papers. But let me tell you what's happened to me twice in the 16 years I've been here. One year I went to the town hall, drove around my neighborhood, got near 100 signatures in a very short amount of time, realized it was on the wrong color paper, town hall called me, I had to go get them back. Wasn't that hard. Happened again a few years later because it was on the wrong form. If we have candidates who cannot go around and ask people for signatures so that they can appear on the ballot, quite frankly, they belong nowhere near a body that makes the laws that govern this state. They're lazy. That is not the kind of people we want. There should be no issue for a state representative to gather 50 signatures. If you have trouble, you may want to reconsider whether or not you should be running for the office. All this is going to do is add to some of the other political nonsense that we have in this state that makes people so jaded about who we are up here and what we do and when they see elections. Those things are like the last day of declaration handoffs where, oh, I forgot my signatures even though I'm incumbent for 20 years and my friend just happened to have his. These are part of what we do. So if someone in my district wants to run as a Democrat, I'll get three of my friends who are Democrats, I'll say, hey, you declare, I'll call up my same 50 friends and they'll go through this little portal and they'll all of a sudden sign your nomination papers. I just eluded my opponent. This is insanity. I would love to hear a good reason why this bill is needed. And don't dare go near disability on this, because I will rise again.