UNLV Law Librarian Jennifer Gross recently passed along an interesting story about the importance of legal research. This Nevada Supreme Court case is a good reminder that you can’t always rely on seemingly authoritative information on the web – you’ve got to find the law.
From the Las Vegas Review-Journal article:
Three petitions signed by an estimated 130,000 registered voters and backed by Las Vegas Sands Inc. cannot appear on the November election ballot because their circulators did not follow the signature collection law, the Nevada Supreme Court ruled Thursday.
Justices said petition circulators failed to follow a 2007 law that requires them to sign affidavits that they personally circulated the petitions and counted the signatures on their petitions, witnessed people sign in their presence and gave them an opportunity to read each petition in its entirety.
The court said petition circulators complained the petitions should go on the ballot because they relied on rules found in an initiative petition guide on Secretary of State Ross Miller’s Web site. That guide had not been amended to include the 2007 law.