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Washington state is now using a mandatory vote-by-mail system in every county except Pierce Co. Ballots for the November 3rd general election will be mailed out on October 14th. Voters may mail them back any day on or before election day.
What this means is that we can no longer rely on holding signs or passing out fliers at the polls to remind voters to vote APPROVED on Ref. 71 to preserve the domestic partnership law. Most of our work must be done well in advance of election day.
What this means is that we only have 60 guaranteed pre-vote days to get our message out to voters; November 3rd is no longer our target date, October 14th is.
Here are the cold hard probabilities of the referendum qualifying for the ballot, courtesy of Darryl at Horsesass.org.
A Monte Carlo analysis consisting of 10,000 simulated samples give a 95% confidence interval for valid signatures of from 121,175 to 122,415, well above the magic number. Here is the distribution of valid signatures:
There are a few “losses” in red on the left, but the overwhelming majority of outcomes in green have the referendum qualifying. In fact, the referendum failed to make the ballot in only 11 of the 10,000 simulations.With the results to date, it is pretty clear that, come fall, we will be voting to accept or reject the “Everything but Marriage” law.
With almost 45% of the signatures already checked as of August 14th, there is little doubt that Darryl’s conclusion is correct: Referendum 71 will qualify for the ballot.
With voters receiving their ballots in just over 60 days, we simply don’t have the luxury of daydreaming about the ballot not qualifying.
The time is now. Take Action!
The Domestic Partnership Law (SB 5688) was passed by the Legislature in 2009 to ensure that all Washington families are treated the same, with the same protections, the same rights and the same obligations as their neighbors. Under this law, registered domestic partners (same-sex couples and opposite-sex couples where at least one partner is over age 62), and married couples, are treated equally under state law throughout Washington.Key rights and obligations in the law include:
Death benefits for the partners of police and firefighters killed in the line of duty.
Pension benefits for the partners of teachers and other public employees.
Victims’ rights, including the right to receive notifications and benefits allowances.
The right to use sick leave to care for a seriously ill partner.
The right to workers’ compensation benefits if a partner is killed in the course of employment.
The right to receive unemployment benefits if an employee must leave a job to care for a seriously ill partner.
The right to adopt a partner’s child without paying for a home study. The areas covered by the law include labor and employment law; pensions, survivor and other public employee benefits; family law; insurance rights; higher education; banks, financial institutions and loan agencies; creditors’ rights and business licenses.
Opponents of the domestic partnership law are seeking to repeal it. Referendum 71 would ask voters whether the law should be approved or rejected. A vote to “APPROVE” keeps the law so that all families will have these protections in all parts of the state.
Go to Washington Families Standing Together to learn more about the referendum, and what you can do to preserve the domestic partnership law.
Washington Families Standing Together * 206-324-2570 * WAFST.org * PO Box 12216, Seattle, WA 98102Cross-posted at Washblog.
9 Comments
Better slogan neededWAFST has got to come up with a better poster than the one they have now. It needs to be big and bold and clear that APPROVE=PRO-GAY. Their green poster just says “Preserve the Domestic Partnership Law” in teeny tiny print. This isn’t going to do the job. Polls show Washington voters overwhelmingly approve (about 70%) of domestic partnerships, but the referendum language seems backwards and that will get a lot of people confused. We need a new, simple, bold poster “Approving 71 = Approving Domestic Partnerships” or something like that.
Here’s an image I put togetherYou’d need the permission of this lesbian family, or substitute another same sex family
http://img.villagephotos.com/p…
APPROVE
All Families
Vote by mail onlySure does limit the potential voters down… how about a campaign of passing out “love” or “hearts” stamps?
Especially at college campuses; kids never seem to have them!
You can help, even if you don’t live in WashingtonMany of the volunteer opportunities do not require living in Washington.
Three things people can easily do to help, which make more of a positive impact than you would think, is adding the signature line to your e-mail (even you if do not personally know anyone that lives in Washington); keep Tweeting and re-tweeting, “Vote APPROVE on REF 71 to KEEP the expanded WA State Domestic Partnership rights PLS RT” (repetition really helps, since people get so many tweets per day);and using Facebook, MySpace and links from your personal blogs to share Lurleen’s daily updates and posts about Referendum 71.
Something that I keep reminding myself is that the group we most need to target with outreach is fair-minded straight people who have not followed this story as closely as we have; polls show that we have the support to win, but we need to get the information out there so that people who support us do not vote against us by mistake or not bother to fill out their ballot and send it in.
Also, I have been making a point of reminding everyone I speak to that if Referendum 71 makes the ballot, the language is a bit confusing and to keep the domestic partnership expansions, we need to vote APPROVE on Ref 71–and asking them to pass the information on (if I am speaking to someone who does not live in Washington, I ask them to pass the information on to any friends who do).
Vote by mail can work for us or against usOverall, we get good voter turn out with vote by mail, but the trick is still to get people to realize that they need to vote, even if they think that nothing on the ballot affects them, personally. You would be surprised how many times I hear people say that they filled out their ballot but they can’t remember if they mailed it.
Here in Pullman, because we are a college town, kids will often find that their ballot got mailed to their home address, so we need to make sure that they are motivated to make sure that they actually get their ballots and mail them in.
I love your idea of handing out the heart stamps. It is an inexpensive way to provide postage and remind kids to actually mail in their ballots.
I like itBut I would write out the word “Referendum”–it would make it easier to see.
Washington Families Standing Together has pictures of LGBT families that they have permission to use on their website. They could probably easily get permission to use some for your idea.
coolI figured if Ref 71 becomes as well known as prop 8, a small acknowledgement of the number was all that was needed, and kept it from cluttering up the main message Approve All Families. But this idea puts our familes boldly in the ad, no goofy PC vs Mac analogies.
On Bill Maher last night Brad Pitt spoke with a passion for marriage equalityMaybe if asked, he’d do a video for ref 71.
the Brad Pitt video is on open thread