What’s the deal with campus signature collectors?

The ones who stand at strategic points around campus and pester just about everyone in order to gain the necessary number of signatures to put a proposal on the upcoming ballot.

Just this past week, I was cornered coming out of the PUB while carrying a heavy tote with both hands.

“Hello, sir, are you a registered voter? I am collecting signatures to get proposition [insert number] on the 2016 ballot,” the collector asked.

Angrily, I snapped back, “Can’t you see my hands are full?” Before she could respond, I continued, “Are you even a student here? Because that is what all the petitioners, like yourself, are trying to pass off as.”

Turns out she was a volunteer from the organization pushing for legislative changes. And while I have nothing against the process of collecting signatures to put initiatives on our local ballots, there’s something profoundly wrong with the trickery that campus petitioners employ to gain the trust of students and faculty alike.

They seem to have their routine down like the back of their hand, and many students who are just trying to reach class on time aren’t willing to press further for more information on what the signature is supporting. The thinking that a fellow student supports a bill, so it must be good, isn’t far-fetched — especially when interrogating this random person standing in your way will make you late for geology.

If it was out in the open that the individual blocking you was in fact not a student, then the level of trust associated would drop considerably.

Petitioners also have the tendency of being incredibly persistent and, if you happened to have a break in your schedule, watching them approach people can be quite entertaining.

During the first few weeks of school, when they swarm campus like locusts, I witnessed one follow a professor from the library steps halfway to the PUB. Seems like the motivation there runs a little deeper than changing statewide politics.

If there is nothing that can be done to remove these people from our campus due to free speech law, then as students we should not give them a second of our time.

I mean, who openly wants to be heckled into signing god-knows-what while rushing from class to class.