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Friday, December 9, 2011

Homo What Ever Happened to That Database with the Names of Everyone Who Signed Referendum 71?

Posted by Dominic Holden on Fri, Dec 9, 2011 at 3:08 PM

I reported back in October that gay-rights activists had obtained petitions which list everyone who signed Referendum 71. (That was the 2009 measure sponsored by anti-gay Christian extremists Gary Randall and Larry Stickney to try repealing a domestic-partnership bill passed by the legislature.) At the time, KnowThyNeighbor.Org director Tom Lang said, "They will be processed over the next few weeks."

But in the seven weeks since, some of you have asked in comments where those signatures are.

Always your servant, I got in touch with Brian Murphy, who runs the Washington affiliate of KnowThyNeighbor—called WhoSigned.Org, the group that filed the records request—and he says folks should hold tight. "We expect to have them done in the next couple weeks," Murphy explains. "When you are doing hundreds of thousands of these hand transcriptions, it just takes time." Murphy also attributed the delay to signatures that don't match an address in the voter registration database. He says in the final version online—a searchable database—some signatures may be flagged as having been potentially disqualified by the Secretary of State's Office. So there you have it.

Comments (7) RSS

Oldest First Unregistered On Registered On Add a comment

Doesn't mean they aren't valid, though.

Posted by Will in Seattle

on December 9, 2011 at 4:17 PM

After all these years, why? I’m sure that some are salivating to look up these folks and run after them, but we need to note that some singers may have had a change of opinion, regret their signing, or otherwise have gone in different directions in their lives. Remember that phrase ‘Move on’? Well, it’s time to heed it.

Posted by Phoebe in Wallingford on December 9, 2011 at 4:36 PM

Good job, faithful servant.

Posted by Spokalou on December 9, 2011 at 4:47 PM

@2 -- I'm a musician, and in my experience singers are always ready to have awkward conversations. They'll be fine.

Posted by this guy I know in Spokane on December 9, 2011 at 5:32 PM

@2 good, then one of these sites can set up a place for people to say, "I signed and I was wrong." or for them to dispute that they ever signed. If the latter, of course, they should be checked out to see if they or business interests they own or have management roles in contributed to anti-gay movements like the initiative, and then flag those up as well. We'd need a section as well for people in the early confusion that maybe signed in error.

Posted by Joe Szilagyi

on December 9, 2011 at 5:48 PM

If the name does not match an address in the voter registry, doesn't that mean it's fraud? I feel like, if the tables were reversed, and liberal names did not match liberal voting-register addresses, we'd be hearing about rampant liberal voting fraud and calls for investigations.

Posted by antny on December 9, 2011 at 9:56 PM

#2 - Six weeks before the deadline to turn in signatures, the sponsors of Ref 71 announced that they had given up: they were too far behind to make it. Then, miraculously, they turned in more than enough to make ballot.

In the years since, the sponsors have spent more money in legal costs to keep those miraculous signatures secret than they spent on the entire referendum campaign. Why? There has long been rumor that those signatures were obtained through fraudulent means: a close inspection would go far to answer the question. And if there is evidence of fraud, the perpetrators must be apprehended, prosecuted and punished for the sake of justice.

That is why so many people are interested in going through that database.

Posted by TechBear on December 9, 2011 at 10:05 PM