North Coast Journal, 07 Oct 2010 – Critics of Prop. 19 Range From Skeptical to Rabid — and Some of Them Come From Inside the Movement In 1911, after years of scandal and high-profile corruption trials, California voters overwhelmingly approved one of the most rigorous ballot initiative laws in the country. The idea was to allow voters to bypass state lawmakers when they were too timid, cowed, or corrupt to act on the voters’ behalf. Almost a century later, the process is still relatively simple and accessible. Any group or individual can write an initiative and submit it with a $200 fee to the state attorney general’s office. After the initiative’s fiscal cost was analyzed, the signature gathering began. If the authors didn’t have access to a large group of well-organized volunteers, signature gatherers could be easily hired at a price. For about $1 million, a professional company would send paid staffers to shopping malls, commercial districts, and public transportation hubs to collect roughly 440,000 signatures of registered voters required to qualify the initiative for the California bal! lot. And if the initiative won 50 percent of the vote on Election Day, it became law.