Lincoln couple say they were tricked into signing wrong abortion petition

LINCOLN, Neb. (KLKN) – A Lincoln couple say they were duped into signing the wrong petition.

With four abortion petitions floating around in Nebraska this year, some confusion was to be expected.

So when Dave Titterington was approached outside a hardware store, he asked several questions.

But he said the circulator was hard to understand and wasn’t being straightforward.

“She said, ‘No, it’s to protect women’s rights,’ and it somewhat messed with me,” Titterington said. “I figured it was to protect women’s right to have an abortion if they choosed or if the case demanded.”

So Titterington signed the petition.

SEE ALSO: Four ballot initiatives in Nebraska tackle abortion in their own way

Soon after, his wife was approached downtown.

He said she asked the circulator point-blank if the petition was to protect women’s right to abortion, and they said yes.

But after they walked away, they realized she had signed the Protect Women and Children Initiative petition.

“And that’s when we realized, ‘Now wait a second here. We didn’t want to sign that one,'” Titterington said.

Channel 8 reached out to the organizers of the petition, but they did not return a request for comment.

SEE ALSO: Ballot initiative seeks to add abortion ban to Nebraska Constitution

Titterington believes the petitioners use these tactics to get more signatures.

“This is a pretty hot topic in Nebraska to get it on the Nebraska Constitution, so I’m sure that people have misleading ways to get signatures to get the petition activated the way they want it,” he said.

He said neither he nor his wife read the petition before signing.

“They just gave us the sheet and told us where to sign and basically verbally explained to us what we thought we were signing,” Titterington said. “It could be our fault that we didn’t take the time to read the petition, but they get people when they’re coming in and out of businesses. A lot of people are in a hurry.”

He worries that there are others who probably haven’t realized they were fooled, too.

“I don’t think it’s very fair,” Titterington said. “I think they should be more explicit about what it is they’re asking you to sign and not give you misleading information.”

The deadline to remove your signature from a petition has already passed.

Election officials are verifying the signatures on two abortion petitions.

Both the Protect Women and Children petition and the Protect Our Rights petition, which would grant Nebraskans a constitutional right to abortion, submitted more than 200,000 signatures.

Election officials are verifying the signatures to determine if the initiatives will be on the ballot.