Shirley delivers petitions

Copyright © 2008
Gallup Independent
By Karen Francis
Diné Bureau

WINDOW ROCK — President Joe Shirley Jr., Vice President Ben Shelly and members of their staff delivered boxes of signed petitions for the president’s initiatives to the Navajo Election Administration at 3 p.m., Tuesday.

The initiatives seek to hold a special election for voters to decide on two issues: to reduce the Navajo Nation Council from 88 to 24 members and to give the president line-item veto power.

In total, there were six boxes containing some 18,889 signatures for the reduction of Council and 17,937 signatures for the line item veto that were delivered to NEA officials who immediately got to work time-date stamping the petitions. For a special election to be held, a minimum of 16,530 valid signatures are needed for each petition.

The number of signatures obtained makes these two initiatives and petition signature-gathering drive the largest ever conducted on the Navajo Nation, the president’s Chief of Staff Patrick Sandoval said.

The petition committee was given six months to collect the signatures. The process began when Shirley filed the two petition initiatives in late April and the NEA found both sufficient for circulation at the beginning of May.

Now the election administration has 30 days to verify the thousands of signatures, Edison Wauneka director of the NEA, said. That includes making sure the signers are registered to vote and there are no duplications.

Since elections are coming up, it will take time to verify the signatures.

“We might have to wait until after Nov. 4 to verify the signatures,” Wauneka said.

A special election would cost $280,000, which is not currently budgeted, Wauneka said. An additional $50,000 to $100,000 would be needed to inform voters about the special election, he added.

For extra appropriations, the election administration would have to ask the Navajo Nation Council for supplemental funds.

The special election cannot be held sooner than 60 days or later than 120 days after the verification, if there is no challenge.

Any legal challenges would prolong the election, Wauneka said.

One challenge was dismissed by the Office of Hearings and Appeals on Monday.

Hearing Officer John A. Chapela dismissed Council Speaker Lawrence T. Morgan’s objection because the objection filed did not include the Navajo Election Administration as an “indispensable party” to the case.

“The election administration is clearly an indispensable party to this action and should have been given immediate notice of the objections made by Speaker Morgan,” Chapela wrote in the order. “OHA has not been provided with any notice that the Election Administration has been informed of this action and this matter can not proceed without the inclusion of the Election Administration.”