The Colorado Attorney General’s Office reports that a statewide grand jury has indicted two paid petition circulators accused of submitting petitions with forged signatures for a school choice constitutional amendment that appeared on Colorado’s 2024 ballot as Amendment 80.
Attorney General Phil Weiser announced that Cherell Long of Nevada and Martin Arellano of Texas were each indicted on four counts. According to the AG’s office, both worked as paid contractors for Victor’s Canvassing, LLC, one of the firms hired to gather signatures for the initiative. The allegations include forged signatures, including signatures tied to deceased voters and voters who had moved out of Colorado.
Let’s be plain: an indictment is an accusation, not a conviction. Both defendants are presumed innocent unless proven guilty. But if the allegations are true, this is not “helping school choice.” This is dragging a good cause through the mud with a cheap clipboard and a paycheck.
The Bullet Point Brief
- A statewide grand jury indicted two paid petition circulators, Cherell Long and Martin Arellano, on four counts each for allegedly submitting petitions with forged signatures connected to the 2024 school choice ballot measure. Not exactly a civics lesson you want laminated.
- The initiative campaign submitted more than 190,000 signatures, and the Secretary of State’s review found about 131,000 appeared valid, more than enough to clear the 124,238-signature threshold. The AG’s office says the fraudulent signatures identified would not have kept Amendment 80 off the ballot.
- The charges include attempt to influence a public servant, elections forgery, forgery, and perjury. That is a pretty serious stack of legal trouble for what allegedly started as “just get more signatures.”
- The defendants allegedly swore under penalty of perjury that their petitions were valid. Apparently, “under penalty of perjury” is now read by some political vendors as “terms and conditions may apply.”
- The lazy media temptation will be to frame this as “school choice equals fraud.” No, genius. Fraud equals fraud. School choice deserves a fair fight, not dirty paperwork from the rent-a-clipboard industrial complex.
My Bottom Line
Ballot integrity matters even when the petition is for an idea conservatives like. Especially then. School choice is a strong cause. Parents deserve options. Kids deserve a system that serves them instead of trapping them in one-size-fits-all mediocrity with a taxpayer-funded smile.
But forged signatures are poison. They do not help parents. They do not help students. They do not help reform. If the allegations are true, these paid circulators handed opponents of school choice a club, gift-wrapped it, and then stood there while public trust got whacked in the face.
Colorado’s initiative process belongs to citizens. It does not belong to clipboard mercenaries trying to pad a paycheck, consultants treating ballot access like a volume business, or political operators who think ethics are optional as long as the invoice clears. That grift layer around politics is a bipartisan infestation. It can damage a good policy faster than a bad editorial board.
So prosecute fraud wherever it lives. Conservative cause, progressive cause, or some boutique nonsense cooked up in a Denver conference room after too much grant-funded coffee. Voters deserve honest petitions. Parents deserve real choices. And school choice deserves a fair fight, not dirty paperwork.
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