Referendum 71 Qualifies

Timothy Kincaid

August 31st, 2009

From the Secretary of State’s website:

With the Referendum 71 signature-check now nearly complete, state election officials say they\’ve now confirmed that sponsors turned in more than the bare minimum needed for a spot on the November statewide ballot. Signature-checkers passed the 121,000 mark on Monday, the 23rd day of an exhaustive hand check of all 137,000-plus signatures submitted on July 25 by foes of a new “everything but marriage” domestic partnership law passed by the Legislature in April.

The numbers still are unofficial and not final, as checkers do one final check of hundreds of previously rejected signatures of people who weren\’t initially found in the voter registration records. That should extend the margin a bit, but the final margin could be in the range of 1,000.

Unless the court rules against the Secretary’s procedure of accepting unsigned and fraudulently stamped petition sheets, refusing to double-check identified questionable signatures, and allowing signatures for not-yet-registered voters, then Washingtonians will be asked to validate or reject the legislature’s action.

Take a moment now to think about what you can do to impact the outcome of votes in Washington and Maine.

Lindoro Almaviva

August 31st, 2009

This is so scary is not even funny. All these irregularities and they have a reason to celebrate?

I would not be surprised if someone at the top of that office has deep ties to the bigots pushing for this proposal.

Cole

August 31st, 2009

Like everything in this process the numbers don’t add up. Election officials were handed 137,689 signatures yet today they wrote down they looked at 137,881 total.

Leonard Drake

August 31st, 2009

For some reason, I was expecting this from the very beginning. I do not live in Washington, so I am not familiar with the history of the ballot qualification process, beyond what has been reported here — extremely well, I might add.

Having said that, it appears those in the Office of the Secretary of State, whoever responsible for the counting of the ballots, or whoever allowed for signatures to be accepted by “voters” registered after the deadline and all other pecularities, appears to be, putting it mildly, fucked up. My question is, for those who ARE familiar with the history of the balloting procedure in Washington state is as follows: It is this typical protocol, or has an extra Biblical branch been extended to a certain few hoping to cast out others, in a fashion unseen in previous time?

Like I stated earlier, I KNEW this was going to happen, and it is important, now more than ever to fight this tooth and nail, because it appears there is something astray within the higher-ups which allowed this to qualify. I do not like to consider myself prone to histrionic or dramatic (beyond any normal queen), but…something is going on here. Or, am I just being irrational and reactionary? Is it really time for me to just take a chill pill and relax about my fears?

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