A warrant has gone out for the arrest of a petition circulator paid to collect signatures to get an initiative to ban affirmative action on the ballot Nov. 4.

Mark L. Brown, 53, Tulsa, Okla., is accused of three counts of false swearing to a circulator’s affidavit. Each is a Class IV felony.

According to an affidavit for his arrest, Lancaster County Election Commission David Shively said while validating petition signatures he and his employees noticed a pattern in petitions Brown submitted.

In August, Shively reported it to police.

According to Police Sgt. Sandra Myers, Shively noticed that signatures, usually by women who were registered in Lancaster County at the address given, often were followed by another name, with the same last name and address with a date of birth within a year or two. 

Shively said the second name would lead someone to believe it may be the husband of the first signer. But when his staff checked into some of the second signers, there was no one by that name listed as a registered voter in the county, he said.

The petitions Brown allegedly signed and turned in included a warning signers could be charged criminally if, for instance, they allowed anyone to sign a name other than his or her own or falsely swore to a circulator’s affidavit.

Myers said a writing comparison was done on 13 petitions submitted by Brown, which turned up 29 names and addresses that he was believed to have written himself.