GRAND JURY TO INVESTIGATE POLK PETITION DRIVES

According to Thursday's Lakeland Ledger, a grand jury in Bartow is looking into possible forgery committed during petition drives by a committee seeking to make changes to the status of constitutional officers in Polk County.

A group known as the Home Rule Charter Committee headed the drive which wants to put three ballot measures on the 2006 ballot: To reduce the salaries of constitutional officers in half, set term limits for those officeholders, and place them under direct control of the Board of County Commissioners...making them, in effect, department heads.

Investigators from the State Attorney's office took several boxes of petition cards from Supervisor of Elections Lori Edwards' office. Her staff had found at least 450 signatures that didn't match those on file for the registered voter.

Another group, the Polk Committee for Effective Government, had filed suit to block verification of the signatures by the SOE, but the Ledger reports today that the investigation has put that court action on ice for now.

The organizer of the petition drive is blaming any discrepancies/forgeries on a contractor he hired to gather petition signatures.