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Saturday, July 25, 2009

Homo R-71 Turns In Signatures

Posted by Dominic Holden on Sat, Jul 25, 2009 at 4:43 PM

Anti-gay Referendum 71, which would put the rights of domestic partners up to a vote in November, may have enough signatures to make the ballot. Or it may not. This afternoon members of Protect Marriage Washington, a handful of dubious religious conservatives, delivered what they estimated were 138,000 signatures to the Washington Secretary of State's Office in Olympia—nearly 18,000 more than required by law.

But that's in the "iffy range," says Secretary of State spokesman David Ammons. Although the state requires 120,577 valid signatures to get on the ballot, the state's elections division estimated last week that the campaign would probably need 150,000 total signatures to make up for the 25 percent of signatures that are typically held invalid on petitions (due to duplicate signatures, wrong addresses, lack of voter registrations, etc.).

The state won't verify the number of total or valid signatures today, but officials did tally 9,356 petitions sheets, which each have room for 20 signatures. "But the average is less than [20 signatures], as some pages have four or five signatures and some have only one," Ammons says. Election crews had had opened the office just for R-71 today, the deadline to submit signatures.

The state will begin verifying the petitions midweek. If the measure qualifies for the ballot, the domestic partnership rights for same-sex couples passed by the legislature earlier this year will remain in limbo until the vote in November, says Ammons. But if the state finds that the petition lacks enough valid signatures, the law would then go into effect immediately.

Comments (12) RSS

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Vote Yes on Referendum 71! Protect Families, Protect Equality!

There you go, that's the slogan.

And the video of the guy lying to the woman about the petitions in a commercial.

I love how they struggled to get this many signatures by scouring churches and then paying people, but Eyman had his ready way early and went way way WAY over the number (which is also double what is required for referenda).

This is going to be fun.

Posted by Baconcat on July 25, 2009 at 5:24 PM

If by fun you mean horrible then yes.

Posted by CodyBolt on July 25, 2009 at 5:31 PM

Be optimistic. That dour "don't do this to us :(" attitude runs contrary to the insistence that as a community, we're just living our life and being happy.

With overwhelming support for domestic partnerships in this state, a campaign of "Vote YES on 71!" with cheerful signs and an explanation that this is for domestic partnerships will go far.

Leave the doom and gloom for the Leviticans.

Posted by Baconcat on July 25, 2009 at 5:40 PM

I hope Mr Reeds sees to it that a fair verification of the signatures takes place, since its already starting to look that it might be a little tainted and biased based on his spokesman's own words. How can he already determined that 25 percent will be discounted already without having verified them? Would he see to it that they're thrown out instantly just because that's what has happened in the past. If so Mr Reed needs to keep this man and others like him as far away from the signatures as possible. People drove from long distances to Olympia so that their voices would be heard and counted as our democracy provides and it would be a disservice it people like Ammons became the sole arbiters of what's legitimate and whats not in order to silence them.

Posted by Loveschild

on July 25, 2009 at 5:49 PM

If you questioned even the most hardline anti-gay zealots about the right to vote, I bet (nearly) all of them would staunchly defend any and every American's right to vote. This is no different from the right to vote. Seriously.

Posted by Sarah in Olympia on July 25, 2009 at 5:54 PM

@4: He determined that because the average rejection rate is 18% and he would rather they be safe.

Posted by Baconcat on July 25, 2009 at 6:10 PM

Nice overreaction, hate's bitch. Ammons has not determined anything at this point. He has merely pointed out that the claimed number of signatures (138,000) is well below the 150,000 suggested to account for the average of 25% invalids. Given that many of the 9,356 petition sheets returned have less than 5 signatures on them (some only 1), I find Oregon Gary's claim of 138,000 (or an average of almost 15 signatures per sheet) to be highly dubious. For them to get this on the ballot they would need to average 12.88 valid signatures per sheet. Sounds like they turned them in anyway, pulling the 138k figure out of their asses to feed the very sort of nutjob conspiracy theorizing in which you are engaging.

Now the question I have is do these sheets and their signatures become public record whether they are found to have enough valid signatures or not? If not it is going to lead to bogus claims of discrimnation by stupid bigots like Hate's bitch.

Posted by JohnnyC on July 25, 2009 at 6:12 PM

Daily Kos

Fri Jul 24, 2009
"Poor Maine is suffering the indignity of a ballot referendum on equal marriage. Can you say, Proposition 8?"

Add Washington to the list...

Posted by The People- United- Will NEVER Be DEFEATED on July 25, 2009 at 6:17 PM

@7 According to the Secretary of State's blog, the names and addresses on the petition sheets become public record when they are submitted. It doesn't matter if the referendum qualifies for the ballot or not.

Posted by Lurleen on July 25, 2009 at 11:33 PM

1. Decline to Sign is so over. 2. They will verify by a sliver 3. The campaign to win is on 4.Mobilize Seattle is critical 5. BIG problem is that we are YES,it feels wrong to our folks 6. We need to get on our campaign message, NOW.Worrying about their petition drive is NOT our message, neither is the verify process. If we make the signature verify central stage, and they make it, it is their first victory. NOT our message.

SGN will do ALL it can in a thousand ways. So far there are no answers about the pending campaign, like where will the 2 million come from? And what of the grassroots?

Also this is a short campaign, 13 weeks, and all mail ballots in our base counties. Short time changes a lot.

On to Victory, YES on Ref: 71 .....

GB

Posted by GB on July 26, 2009 at 8:52 AM

Didn't anyone organize a counter-petition wherein people sign as many times as possible with false information? This would increase the rejection rate exponentially and strip those assholes of the overage they think they got.

Posted by Petitioner on July 27, 2009 at 6:11 PM

11
It is a felony to sign with a false identity.

Posted by Go Ahead, Make My Day... on July 28, 2009 at 9:12 AM