Indictment hits out-of-state petition effort

AP reports:

Using out-of-state residents to circulate initiative petitions in Oklahoma can be risky business.

Ask a Michigan woman and two other people indicted last week on felony charges by a multicounty grand jury.

Susan Johnson, the head of National Voter Outreach -- a signature-gathering company based in Ludington, Michigan -- was led out of an Oklahomqa City courtroom in handcuffs. So were Paul Jacob of Virginia, a national leader of the term limit movement, and Rick Carpenter of Tulsa, director of Oklahomans In Action.

They were charged with conspiracy to defraud the state by using petition circulators who are not Oklahoma residents to collect signatures for a so-called taxpayer bill of rights in 2006.