Community Post

Referendum 71 – Status Update

In July an anti-gay group submitted 137,689 signatures to the state to add Referendum 71 to the ballot in November. The state requires 120,577 valid signatures for the referendum to proceed. The state publishes daily updates on how their signature validation is coming along. These updates can be found at this Washington Secretary of State website. The current signature validation rate is 89.58% which is more than enough to get this hateful referendum on the ballot.

If this gets on the ballot please vote APPROVE to approve the domestic partnership bill passed by your state legislators to support equal rights for all. (Yes it is counter-intuitive that you need to vote approve for a referendum that you’d rather not vote on. Confusion is what the hateful anti-gays are banking on.)

Let’s get the word out now as November is right around the corner. To support the domestic partnership bill please visit
Washington Families Standing Together.

Thank you!

0 thoughts on “Referendum 71 – Status Update

  1. Also, you can volunteer as follows:

    Phone Bank Volunteers Needed: We have already started phone banking out of our Seattle office. We are calling Monday-Thursday 10am-8pm, Friday, 10am-5pm. If you live outside Seattle we do have the ability to allow people to do phone banking from their homes and in the future will have other phone bank locations. If you would like to volunteer sign up by e-mailing – [email protected] or calling 206-324-2570.

    Or contribute at – http://approvereferendum71.org/

  2. I hate defending the bigots, but I don’t think the confusing “vote yes to say no to the referendum” business is a deliberate scheme to confuse anyone. I think you’re voting APPROVE because you’re voting on the original, underlying law that the referendum seeks to overturn/undo/rescind/whatever.

    It’s just the system.

    Unless the bigots are more nefarious than I thought.

  3. I’m deeply disappointed to see that the Referendum may have gathered the signatures. I wrote an essay in my college English class last week on it, and I had such hopes that this would fall flat on its face. It has not.

    However, if it makes it to a vote, I hope that other Washington voters will be wise enough to stand up for equality and not make the same mistakes California did.

    Can someone tell me what the wording on this will be if it makes it onto the ballot? Voting yes would presumably be for approving the Domestic Partnership law modifications… but will this be clear wording?

  4. Katie,

    The text of the referendum, if this makes it onto the November ballot will be:

    Statement of Subject: The legislature passed Engrossed Second Substitute Senate Bill 5688[4] concerning rights and responsibilities of state-registered domestic partners [and voters have filed a sufficient referendum petition on this bill].

    Concise Description: This bill would expand the rights, responsibilities, and obligations accorded state-registered same-sex and senior domestic partners to be equivalent to those of married spouses, except that a domestic partnership is not a marriage.

    Should this bill be:

    Approved ___
    Rejected ___

    Taken from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Referendum_71_(2009)

  5. Is everyone watching how these election officials are rigging the election? How many times have they looked at these same signatures and gotten different numbers every time? I copied the August 7, 2009 (rigged) election results page because I knew the secretary of state would take down the page and create new math and create new numbers. I have now copied the August 11, 2009 (rigged) election results page too.

    On August 6, 2009 after five days of counting the rejected signature rate was over 14% well over the 12.4% needed to pass. The next day all of a sudden master fixers I mean “checkers” changed the numbers and the rejected signature rate moved a massive 19%. Yesterday after looking at the SAME signatures the numbers moved another massive 10%. Election officials have looked at the SAME signatures four times and have come up with four different numbers.

  6. It’s important that those in favor of referendum 71 get out and talk to people about why equal rights are essential for gay and lesbian families. Those who oppose equality pushed hard to get this back on the ballot, and they will be out on street corners and making phone calls up until November. We must push harder.
    As Nicole Brodeur pointed out in the Seattle Times “It’s not enough to join a Facebook group or cut a check to a gay-rights organization with the belief it will do the heavy lifting.” ( http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2009593779_n). This time, we all must do the heavy lifting–talking to people we may not know or be comfortable with, to explain in human terms why this is so important.
    Above, Bryan suggests volunteering to phone-bank–a great suggestion. Does anyone have other creative ideas?

  7. Yes, Irving, they are that nefarious! It is NO ACCIDENT that this initiative is being done in an off-year election. They are banking on low turnout of the general population. But issues like this gets the bigots “motivated” and they will sure show up to do something. It is also no accident that the ballot initiative is written in a deceptive way to confuse. The confusion is to those who are more the general population, not the “motivated” vocal minority. Trust me-the anti-gay, religious bigots will know exactly what to do on election day. It is the rest of us who need to be aware how to properly read and interpret this ballot initiative. Let’s not all be naive!