Box Turtle Bulletin
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobby“Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife…”
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobbyAugust 13th, 2009
50,496 signatures reviewed (36.7%)
5,375 permanantly rejected
10.65% fail rate
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Lucrece
August 13th, 2009
It’s going to happen.
David C.
August 13th, 2009
The error rate is creeping up, not fast mind you, but it is going up. I think that fail rate should be 10.68 though, Timothy, at least according to this summary from the Washington state SoS. Are you interpreting these numbers differently or getting them from another source?
AJD
August 13th, 2009
The worst part is that if they end up having enough valid signatures, you know they’re going to be attributing it to divine intervention.
I just hope our side doesn’t f*ck up like it did in California.
Leonard Drake
August 13th, 2009
I don’t know why I feel so pessimistic about all of this. I am just so sick of all of this f*cking crap. Maybe it’s time to move to Canada — especially if our side does f*ck it up again. I wish our side doesn’t wimp it out and not be afraid of offending someone’s sensibilities in favor of fighting, and saying what needs to be said.
AJD
August 14th, 2009
I’m with Leonard. Winning the hearts and minds of the public is difficult for any historically despised minority group, but I think a big reason why we keep failing is that we don’t do what we should be doing: Aim to bring the public to our side while simultaneously turning it against the other side.
We have this chronic, PC fear of offending anyone, so we put out these ads showing how nice and normal we are (if that), but we never attack the other side. The problem with this is that it allows the other side to define the terms of debate, leaving us able to do little more than react whenever they attack us.
Let’s be honest: There is no logical, principled reason to support banning same-sex marriage, let alone domestic partnership benefits. If there is one that doesn’t ultimately stem from discomfort with the idea of men being with men and women being with women and possibly caring for children to boot, I have yet to hear it.
Pender
August 14th, 2009
OK, let’s suppose it qualifies for the ballot.
Nate Silver has suggested that Washington would reject an initiative to ban gay marriage if it came before them today. Something like two thirds of the nation supports civil unions. Is there really any chance that this stupid thing will pass? Any polls on the subject in Washington?
AJD
August 14th, 2009
Pender, a lot of people said the same thing about Prop. 8. Was there any possibility that all those fair-minded, loving, tolerant Californians would tell their gay neighbors they couldn’t marry? We all know the answer to that.
If the experience of Prop. 8 should teach us anything, it’s that we’re not going to win simply by telling ourselves we’ll win.
Pender
August 14th, 2009
AJD: Yes, but they were obviously wrong about prop 8 even at the time. The polling data for marriage in California in 2008 looks tons different from the polling data for civil unions in Washington state in 2009.
For what it’s worth, I was screaming about the danger of Prop 8 at the very beginning of the campaign, back when all the rest of the gays seemed to be fast asleep and dreaming of how wonderful and liberal their California neighbors were. I donated $1000 in the summer, almost a full year before the election and ten months before the community woke up. I’m not a reflexively optimistic person about this sort of thing, but even I think this Washington situation is different.
AJD
August 14th, 2009
Pender, of course it’s different — it’s domestic partnerships this time, not marriage, and Washington isn’t quite as conservative overall as California. Still, I think one of the worst things we can do is take success for granted and lull ourselves into complacency.
Elise
August 14th, 2009
But once again, this vote isn’t going to be decided by Washingtonians in general, it’s going to be decided by the Washingtonians who actually pick up a ballot and vote, and they’re going to skew conservative in an off-election year.
Also, let’s not forget the important role that flat-out lies and fear-mongering played in Prop 8 and in (if reports are true) the collection of signatures for this petition. It doesn’t matter how many people really support civil unions if enough of them are convinced that Ref 71 is really about, say, the mandatory indoctrination of schoolchildren into the homosexual lifestyle.
I think this fight is definitely winnable, but only if we’re aggressive about getting out the vote and loudly debunking the disinformation campaign (and there will be one).
AJD
August 14th, 2009
Elise is right. We can’t just sit on our thumbs and expect to win based on the goodness of strangers.
Pender
August 14th, 2009
Ugh. I know that, AJD. Show me the sentence in my post where I advocated for sitting on our thumbs and expecting to win based on the goodness of strangers and I’ll admit that you have a worthwhile point.
Burr
August 14th, 2009
Quite simply it needs to be pointed out during the campaign that the other side are liars. That when they say it’s about marriage it’s obviously a lie because now they are against something that isn’t even marriage.
Heck maybe even toss in a veiled threat that if these rights are struck down, then there will be no choice but to push for marriage. So make the compromise now. :P
AJD
August 14th, 2009
Pender: I didn’t mean to suggest you advocated that. Sorry for the confusion.
Dan
August 14th, 2009
Update!!
The error rate is now 10.99% with 58,000 checked. Now that may seem bad, since it is less than the 12.4% that will disqualify R71. But this is actually great news.
The trend is for a deteriorating error rate. If that holds, R71 will achieve an error rate of over 13%. The previous increase in the cumulative failure failure rate was .23% for every 15,000 signatures checked. If that had held, R71 would have survived by an unbelievably close .15%. But now the error rate increases at .51% for each additional 15,000 names checked. If that rate holds, the check will end with a failure rate over 13% and R71 will fail.
All of these numbers are below the historical average failure rate of 15-18%, so let’s hope that some real dirty batches are yet to be checked.
Also, worth noting is that the above analysis assumes that the SoS continues its current unfair practice of double-checking rejected names but not double-checking accepted names, thereby skewing the process toward validation. If the results wind up being a close win for R71, this will be litigated. Fortunately, the SoS has agreed to conduct a very small random double check of 200 initially accepted signatures. If this results in even 1 accepted signature going into the reject pile, and given the closeness of the count, I can’t see how they can avoid doing a complete recheck (unless R71 fails even without the recheck).
Cole
August 14th, 2009
As others have mentioned, the process is rigged so this anti-gay referendum gets on the ballot. Elections officials have looked at the first 33,000+ rejected signatures at least four times, twice by junior checkers and twice by master checkers, while the accepted signatures have not recieved that attention. Also the secretary of state spokesperson gave a disrespectful answer to people’s concern about the unequal examination of the signatures. He basically said gay people ain’t worth looking at the accepted signatures twice because of (heterosexual) tax-payers expense.
timothy kincaid
August 14th, 2009
David,
my numbers differ from the SoS because they include missing signatures as invalid, even though most will be deemed valid when the signature is recovered from the county. i exclude these from my fail-rate calculation.
Dan
August 15th, 2009
If R71 qualifies, it will be very interesting to see the results. Poll after poll in every state, including even Texas, shows very substantial majorities in favor of domestic partnership rights. Typically, the poll will ask whether the respondent supports marriage, DP, or nothing. The breakdown varies state to state, but in every state the combination of the pro-marriage and pro-DP respondents is a substantial majority. In WA, it is something like 75%.
Let’s see how much we can trust these polls. I am skeptical. The Bradley effect always shows up when it comes to this issue. And when Colorado voters were asked to vote on civil unions, they rejected it by 4 or 5 percentage points. My prediction is that we will win, but by a few percentage points above 50%, not anything near the 75% the polls suggest.
Pender
August 15th, 2009
Dan, that is interesting. I admittedly don’t know much about the Colorado vote. How did the outcome compare to the pre-election polls? I agree that there is inevitably something of a Bradley effect, but I wonder how much it extends beyond those polled as undecided.
AJD: No problem. I was probably being overly sensitive, partly because of my barely-contained rage at the passivity of the gay community early in the Prop 8 campaign. You have a good point.
Leonard Drake
August 15th, 2009
Sorry for playing the role of the ever self-hating pessimist here. I just fear, in the off-election year, the churches will be driving the bible-thumpers in vans and bus-loads to the polls and R-71 (which may just squeak through, as they sure as hell won’t double check the “already qualified” signatures) might just pass after all.
Why is it those people who are “passionate” liberals tend not to be as “passionate” on voting days (GLBT voters notwithstanding)? Will the “passionate” open minded heterosexuals show up in van and bus loads on the day of the vote also?
I sure as hell hope so, but for some reason, history does not bode so well…
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