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Marriage equality: anti-gay group in Washington misses its signature goal for ballot initiative
May 24, 2012
By Scottie Thomaston
Preserve Marriage Washington is the group that’s gathering signatures to put marriage equality on the ballot this year (the initiative is Referendum 74), after the bill has already been passed and signed by the governor in Washington. PMW is affiliated with the National Organization for Marriage. They set a goal of 200,000 by May 6:
“I want the headline above the fold that says ‘R-74 gets 200,000 signatures a month early!’. I want to shut up our opponents. …Because our opponents – this is a battle, and our opponents need to be demoralized,” Chris Plante told a group of volunteers in March. Plante is a Rhode Island-based NOM employee sent to Washington to act as Preserve Marriage Washington’s deputy campaign director.“I’ve been saying, on May 6th I’d love to put out a press release saying, the human part of me says ‘nah-nah-na-na-nah’, we got the signatures,” Plante told volunteers at a similar event in April. “Something to the effect of ‘Washington will not stand for messing with marriage’.”
The deadline for signature gathering is June 6. They have 121,876 signatures according to their website. The group will still qualify for the ballot, since it’s easy to get the required number of signatures (200,000 was just a goal but the actual number needed is quite a lot less) but as Laurel Ramseyer at Pam’s House Blend notes, it’s a really big deal that they won’t reach their goal:
It’s now weeks later and not only has NOM-PMW failed to meet their goal of filing 200,000 signatures on May 6th, but it appears unlikely that they will even have 200,000 signatures to file by the June 6th deadline. If NOM-PMW had any kind of meaningful support in Washington, they should have had no problem accomplishing this fall-back goal.Once again, the national anti-gay groups will learn that Washington doesn’t have much interest in their attempts to overturn our laws.
Despite the money flowing in and the efforts of national anti-gay groups, there is not a lot of interest in attacking gays and lesbians with a ballot initiative this year.
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25 Comments Leave a Comment
1.
Frisky1 | May 24, 2012 at 2:21 pm
They're at 127k now. They are trying to get the signatures in by May 31 according to their website. I wonder if thats so they can try to verify that they have enough valid signatures for June 6? If they submit the signatures to the state but don't have enough valid ones, the names on those petitions still become public record even if it doesn't get on the ballot.
Another reason why its very important to them to get closer to 200k signatures is that its more likely the state will do a full validation of all the names submitted the lower the number of names over the minimum. So if they submit 135,000, the state will validate all 135,000 names. If they submit 235,000, its moe likely the state will do a random check of 4,000 or 5,000 of the names.
http://blogs.sos.wa.gov/FromOurCorner/index.php/2…
2.
Sharon | May 24, 2012 at 2:58 pm
According to their website, the numbers have been accelerating at an abnormally fast pace. Just over the last two days there has been a big surge. Either their paid signature gatherers are working, or they are falsely claiming a high number to encourage more signatures. Either way, I hope the state makes sure every signature is valid, so we don't have to waste anymore time on this issue there. I read they were out in force telling people if they support marriage equality, they should sign the petition to let their voices be heard. Shady.
3.
Reformed | May 24, 2012 at 3:17 pm
Scottie,
Seriously, if there were an award for terrible headlines . . . Ok, so they missed their goal! I thought they failed to qualify until the last 1/2 of the article. Stop messing with me man!
4.
nightshayde | May 24, 2012 at 3:25 pm
Agreed — the title of this article is misleading & should be changed. You had me all excited there for a moment.
It's all well and good to have a population that supports equality in theory — but if the people who DO support equality don't bother to actually VOTE, the pro-discrimination forces will be given more power than they should have. Look what happened in North Carolina — a low turnout of voters made it possible for pro-discrimination side to pass that hideous measure by a wide margin.
5.
Terri K. | May 24, 2012 at 3:31 pm
Can the gathered signatures be exposed?
6.
DaveP | May 24, 2012 at 3:34 pm
I agree with the posters above. I do appreciate all the work that goes into something like P8TT. I really do. But I have noticed a recent trend toward more inflammatory or misleading headlines, in both directions – some unnecessarily alarming, some misleadingly positive. BOTH are a real turn-off. Please go back to the more even-handed style of headlines that have worked so well for P8TT.
7.
Kevin | May 24, 2012 at 3:37 pm
Yeah — this article also doesn't mention the number of signatures actually needed (120,577) or the error rate as reported by the state election office (18%). Thus, opponents need at least 150k to be safe. It is thus *far* from certain that this will qualify for the ballot.
8.
Scott Wooledge | May 24, 2012 at 3:42 pm
Whatever the threshold of signatures or Iiklihood of invalid signatures the odds of them failing are probably pretty remote.
Not that your handicapping or mine will have much of an affect on whether they get there or not. They will or they won't.
9.
Kevin | May 24, 2012 at 3:47 pm
That's not the point. It's irresponsible for this page, or any other that wants to represent itself as a reliable source of information, to print that an event will occur when the truth of that statement can reasonably be called into doubt with a basic google search.
10.
Kate | May 24, 2012 at 3:51 pm
Yeah………. it was a real disappointment when I finally realized what the article was really about.
11.
_BK_ | May 24, 2012 at 5:29 pm
Agreed. I didn't even know they had a 200k goal — I just thought it was 150k "just to be safe" and 120k at bare minimum. Go figure.
12.
Kate | May 24, 2012 at 5:35 pm
I count on this site to be accurate. Even if I don't like it, I want it to be accurate. I want it to be the truth. Stretched content or headlines are a dime a dozen at the NOM sites. Please, not here.
13.
MightyAcorn | May 24, 2012 at 6:14 pm
I concur. Headlines have benn very stretchy and unclear of late. Credibility is taking a hit. Very disappointed that this is an issue.
14.
Straight Dave | May 24, 2012 at 6:20 pm
IIRC, for R-71 (Dom partnerships?) 3 years ago, they got something around 137K signatures, 121K were valid, they needed 120K. After this week's big surge, I gave up wishing and realized they are very likely to get enough. But given how difficult it was, and with 5+ more months of positive mood swing to go, I am getting more encouraged that the vote will be at least as successful for WA LGBT as R71. WA voters don't seem to be making much distinction between DP and marriage, since the petitions are working out about the same.
Discrimination is getting harder to come by.
15.
Dann Birkholz | May 24, 2012 at 6:20 pm
Damn, me too!
16.
Straight Ally #3008 | May 24, 2012 at 6:40 pm
Random thought: on one side, people trying to get the same rights and benefits as their straight peers, plus their allies; on the other, people determined to stop them.
17.
Scott Wooledge | May 24, 2012 at 7:32 pm
Well the site and the author's creditability will only be called into question if they fail to qualify for the ballot. Otherwise they will have accurately predicted the ultimate outcome.
So I'll guess we'll see.
18.
Straight Dave | May 24, 2012 at 8:10 pm
Right! But I can never get past the question – why, why, why?!?!?
Why are there so many people who
a) Truly are bigoted and think it's their job to give "other" people a hard time
b) Think some piece of the sky is gonna fall and hit them on the head
c) Are making up for some deficiency/hurt/insult by dumping on someone else to make themselves feel better
d) Aren't personally bothered so much but easily buy into some schmuck's BS about how important this is, without actually thinking it though for 2 seconds.
However you slice it, that's an awful lot of effed-up people.
19.
Steve | May 24, 2012 at 9:45 pm
They really need to increase the number of required signatures. It's ridiculously low
20.
Bob | May 25, 2012 at 7:51 am
well said Nightshade,,,,, the headline stirred up a hornets nest,,, anger at Scottie ,,,, for misleading,,,,, the energy it created is good
it is true that if this headline where out there and people believed it ,probably it would affect outcome at the polls,,, i.e. complacency,,,,, we need to be vigilent against that,,,,
we can't let headlines dictate our thoughts and behavior,,, we need to do be actually engaged and involved right up to the end,,,, look how quickly people believed he headline,,,(how did that make us feel initially),,, thanks to Scottie for clarifying,,, I think when preaching to the choir,, it's good to stir the hornets nest now and again,,,, "don't believe a headline" read the article,,, don't let a headline lull you into complacency,,,,, work on it ,,, be glad the roller coaster was just in this article for us "now",,, how can we work at changing the reality ,,,,,,, it got us engaged,, like Kevin below who actuallly looked up the numbers required,,, would we be doing that if Scottie did it for us,,,, I like Straight Dave's comment below,, "there's a lot of effed up people " out there against us
21.
MFargo | May 25, 2012 at 8:12 am
Since you asked…
http://www.sociologyinfocus.com/2011/09/06/thats-…
22.
Jamie | May 25, 2012 at 9:03 am
Most ballot initiatives get on the ballot from paid signature gatherers who falsify signatures and/or get random people on the street to sign. These petitions were circulated in hate filled "churches." It's likely that a greater percentage of the signatures are valid.
23.
Jamie | May 25, 2012 at 9:04 am
I'd say the same thing in CA. In both states it requires a constitutional amendment.
24.
George | May 25, 2012 at 4:00 pm
It's entirely possible that they are faking the petitions – the R-71 petitions, including signatures, are public. With a little work they could be copying the old ones onto new ones. If done with any intelligence at all, the Secretary of State's office wouldn't invalidate very many of them.
25.
shikija | May 30, 2012 at 12:56 am
These people profess to be "Christians" but they are actually Old Testament advocates, not the followers of the direct teaching of Christ. I wonder if they would let you purchase one of their daughters for a couple of goats? Or if they require their female slaves to marry one of their male slaves? It's all right there in their OT Bible, so it must be OK.
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