Want to help Marsy’s Law?  Here’s what you need to know to gather signatures.

Snow is on the ground in many parts of Montana, but that’s not going to stop Marsy’s Law signature gatherers from hitting the streets as we get started collecting the over 50,000 signatures we’ll need to qualify for next year’s General Election ballot.

To meet that goal, we’re going to need the help of a dedicated team of volunteers.  You can volunteer by contacting Marsy’s Law for Montana State Director Chuck Denowh at [email protected].

But before you begin, there are a few things you need to know:

• Signature gatherers must be Montana residents.  We ask all of our signature gatherers to have a Montana-issued identification with them—you will get asked where you’re from and might even be asked to prove it.
• Signers must be registered to vote in Montana.  If someone is not registered, you can ask them to fill out a registration card.  As long as the signer is registered to vote by June 2016, their signature will count.
• All of the signatures on a single petition sheet need to be from the same county.  You need to ask potential signers where they’re from and make sure you’re getting them to sign the correct sheet.  We turn in the petition sheets to County Election Offices, and if a signer isn’t registered to vote in that County, the signature won’t count.
• Signature gatherers need to sign an affidavit and have it notarized to affirm that they collected the signatures on a particular sheet.  That affidavit needs to be signed after the signatures are collected.  You don’t need an affidavit for each individual petition sheet, but you do need to bundle them by county (up to 25 sheets) and have an affidavit for each set.  Don’t worry, we’ll help you find a notary to get you through the process.

Those are the major requirements that we need to follow to correctly gather signatures.  If you want to volunteer, we will send you a complete set of instructions and the proper signature and affidavit forms. Remember, the state team is here to help our volunteers do things the right way so that the signatures we collect get to count in the end. 

Join today to help pass Marsy’s Law in Montana!