A. Number of Petitioners Required: To enact an ordinance by initiative or to repeal an ordinance by referendum, there shall be attached or appended to the petition the signatures of the legal voters of the County equal to at least twenty percent (20%) of the total number of voters registered to vote at the last general election in the County.
B. Form of Petitions:
1. Initiative Petition: The initiative petition shall be in substantially the following form:
Initiative Petition to the Commissioners of Washington County, Idaho: "We, the undersigned citizens and legal voters of Washington County, respectfully demand that the following proposed ordinance, to-wit: (setting out full text of measure proposed) shall be submitted to the legal voters of Washington County, Idaho, for their approval or rejection at an election to be called in accordance with Idaho Code Section 31-717, and each for himself says: I have personally signed this petition; I am a legal voter of Washington County; my residence and post office are correctly written after my name.
Name Street and Number Post Office
(Here follow numbered lines for signatures.)
2. Referendum Petition: The petition for referendum on any ordinance passed by the County Commissioners shall be in substantially the same form with appropriate title and changes, setting out in full the text of the ordinance to be referred to the people for their approval or rejection.
C. Time for Filing Referendum Petitions: Referendum petitions with the requisite number of signatures attached shall be filed with the Clerk of the District Court not less than sixty (60) days following the final adoption of the ordinance to be subject to referendum.
D. Printing of Petitions and Signature Sheets; Time Limits for Perfecting Petitions:
1. Before or at the time of beginning to circulate any petition for initiative or referendum, the person under whose authority the petition is to be circulated shall send or deliver to the Clerk of the District Court a copy of such petition duly signed by at least twenty (20) electors eligible to sign such petition. The Clerk of the District Court shall immediately examine the petition and specify the form and kind and size of paper on which the petition shall be printed and circulated for further signatures. All petitions and sheets for signatures shall be printed on a good quality bond or ledger paper, on pages eight and one-half inches in width by thirteen inches in length (81/2" x 13"), with a margin of one and three-fourths inches (13/4") at the top for binding, and the sheets for signatures shall have numbered lines thereon from one to twenty (20) for signatures. The petition shall be prepared in sections, with each section numbered consecutively. Each section of a petition must have a printed copy of the petition as the first page, and each section shall have attached to it not more than ten (10) sheets for signatures.
2. The Clerk of the District Court shall indicate, in writing, on the petition that he has approved it as to form. The Clerk of the District Court shall inform the person under whose authority the petition is to be circulated, in writing, that the petition must be perfected with the required number of certified signatures within sixty (60) days following the date of approval as to form. Any petition that has not been perfected with the required number of certified signatures within the sixty (60) days allowed shall be declared null and void ab initio in its entirety.
E. Verification of Signatures: Each and every signature sheet of each petition containing signatures shall be verified on the face thereof in substantially the following form by the person who circulated said sheet of the petition, by his affidavit thereon, as a part thereof:
STATE OF IDAHO )
) ss.
County of Washington )
I, , swear, under penalty of perjury, that every person who signed this sheet of the foregoing petition signed his or her name thereto in my presence. I believe that each has stated his or her name and the accompanying required information on the signature sheet correctly, and that the person was eligible to sign this petition.
Signature
Post Office Address
Subscribed and sworn to before me this day of , 19 .
(Notary Seal) Notary Public
Residing at
F. Examination and Certification of Signatures:
1. All petitions with attached signature sheets shall be presented on the same day to the Clerk of the District Court who shall make a cursory examination of them to determine whether the petitions apparently contain the necessary number of signatures.
a. If the total number of signatures on the petitions is not sufficient to satisfy the number required by subsection A of this Section, all petitions with attached signature sheets shall be retained by the Clerk of the District Court who shall notify, in writing, the person filing the petition of the number of signatures needed, and further signatures may be gathered, if within the time limit of subsection D of this Section.
b. If cursory examination of the signature sheets reveals:
(1) Erasures on any signature;
(2) Illegible or undecipherable signatures;
(3) Signatures not properly identified by all of the information required on the sheet;
(4) Duplicate signatures; or
(5) Signatures of persons who have requested, in writing, to have their names removed from the petition;
the Clerk of the District Court shall summarily reject such signatures, and they shall not be counted. Each rejected signature shall be drawn through with ink and initialed by the Clerk of the District Court. If the total number of signatures not rejected is not sufficient to satisfy the number required by subsection A of this Section, all petitions with attached signature sheets shall be retained by the Clerk of the District Court who shall notify, in writing, the person filing the petition of the number of signatures needed, and further signatures may be gathered, if within the time limit of subsection D of this Section.
2. All petitions presented to the Clerk of the District Court found to apparently contain the necessary number of signatures, after the cursory examination provided for above, shall be filed with the Clerk of the District Court and become public records of the County not to be returned. The Clerk of the District Court shall examine each such signature purported to be that of a registered elector of the County and compare each such signature with the registration documents available to the Clerk of the District Court. The Clerk of the District Court shall summarily reject all signatures which are not the signatures of a registered elector of the County, and such rejected signatures shall not be counted. Each rejected signature shall be drawn through with ink and initialed by the Clerk of the District Court. The Clerk of the District Court may take not to exceed ten (10) days after filing of the petition to complete his examination. During said period, petitioners may request, in writing, to have their names removed from the petition and the Clerk of the District Court shall do so. The Clerk of the District Court shall certify each signature found to comply with all of the requirements of this Chapter by an appropriate mark following each signature.
The Clerk of the District Court shall total the number of certified signatures and, if found to total the number of signatures required by subsection A of this Section, shall proceed as provided in subsection G herein.
G. Sufficiency of Petition; Notice; Commission Action; Election:
1. In the event that a petition filed with a Clerk of the District Court does not contain the required number of certified signatures, the Clerk of the District Court shall inform the person under whose authority the petition was circulated that the petition is defective for lack of certified signatures and specify the number of additional signatures required to make the petition valid. The petition must be perfected within thirty (30) days of the date that the Clerk of the District Court finds the petition defective for lack of certified signatures. If the petition is not perfected within the thirty (30) day period, the Clerk of the District Court shall declare the petition null and void ab initio in its entirety.
2. In the event that a petition filed with the Clerk of District Court is found to contain the required number of certified signatures, the Clerk of the District Court shall promptly, by certified mail, inform the petitioners and shall also notify the Board of County Commissioners at its next meeting that the initiative or referendum petition is in proper form.
a. If the petition is for a referendum, the Board of County Commissioners shall have thirty (30) days from the date of certification of the petition to repeal the ordinance being referred to the voters. In the event the Board repeals the ordinance, the referendum petition shall be declared null and void.
b. If the petition is an initiative petition, the Board of County Commissioners shall have thirty (30) days to pass an ordinance substantially as proposed by the petition. In the event the Board passes such an ordinance, the initiative petition shall be null and void.
c. In the event the Board of County Commissioners neither repeals the ordinance which is the subject of a referendum petition nor enacts an ordinance which is the subject of an initiative petition, an election shall be ordered by the Clerk of the District Court to be conducted countywide. A special election for initiative or referendum shall be provided not more than ninety (90) days following the certification of the petition; provided, that in the event a County election will occur within the ninety (90) days, the initiative or referendum shall be submitted at the time of the County election. (Ord. 30, 10-22-90, eff. 11-1-90)