Since the Washington Secretary of State has just announced the official raw signature tally for Referendum 71, I thought it would be fun to summarize some of the other numbers shaping this campaign.

Domestic Partners

  • 5,727.  This is the most important statistic.  “There are 5727 Domestic Partnership registrations as of 7/30/2009 3:32:18 PM”, reports the WA Secretary of State.  That’s 11,454 people.  I am one of them.
  • 39.  Registered domestic partners are living in each of Washington state’s 39 counties.
  • 200 -> 450.  Registered domestic partnerships provide about 200 of the 450 state-level rights, responsibilities and protections that are provided by civil marriages.  The number will be 450 for both DPs and marriages if the Domestic Partnership Expansion Bill of 2009 is APPROVED by voters in November, or if Referendum 71 fails to make the ballot in the first place.
  • Some of the rights, responsibilities and protections that would be extended to elderly heterosexual and LGBT families are:
  • Victims’ rights, including the right to receive notifications and benefits allowances. Business succession rights.
  • Legal process rights, such as the ability to sign certain documents, the requirement to join in certain petitions, rights to cause of action, and ability to transfer licenses without charge.
  • The right to use sick leave to care for a spouse.
  • The right to wages and benefits when a spouse is injured, and to unpaid wages upon death of spouse.
  • The right to unemployment and disability insurance benefits disability insurance issues
  • Workers’ compensation coverage.
  • Insurance rights, including rights under group policies, policy rights after death of spouse, conversion rights, and continuing coverage rights.

    • Referendum 71

  • 137,689.  Referendum 71 sponsors turned in 137,689 raw signatures, says David Ammons from the Secretary of State’s office. Referendum sponsors had estimated 138,500.  The SoS will begin validating signatures Friday to determine whether there are the 120,577 valid ones required to qualify the referendum for the ballot.
  • 14%.  137,689 raw signatures translates into a pad of only about 14% extra signatures.  “The historic average error rate on initiatives and referenda is 18 percent, so R-71 will have to be cleaner than that to qualify,” says David Ammons.
  • 17,113.  137,689 – 120,577 = 17,112.  Thus, the SoS will check the validity of each and every signature until the number of invalid signatures reaches 17,113 or the number of valid signatures reaches 120,577.

    Washington Families Standing Together

    WAFST is an unbrella organization dedicated to ensuring that families remain protected by the domestic partnership law.

  • 125.  WAFST has 125 Coalition Partners an counting.
  • 90.  WAFST has the backing of over 90 religious leaders and organizations
  • 50k.  About 50,000 Washington voters participated in the Decline 2 Sign Ref. 71 campaign.

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    Related

    * Washington Families Standing Together: Strength in Unity

    * Religious Leaders & Faith Communities Wholeheartedly Support Washington’s Domestic Partnership Law

    * APPROVE Ref. 71 to Preserve the Domestic Partnership Law

    REFERENDUM 71

    Ballot Title

    Statement of Subject: The legislature passed Engrossed Second Substitute Senate Bill 5688 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 ___

    Join Washington Families Standing Together in their fight to preserve our domestic partnership laws by clicking on the graphics below.