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The Washington Secretary of State announced today that they’ve verified about 900 signatures over the threshold of 120,577 needed for ballot qualification. The anti-child, anti-family ballot measure may qualify for the ballot, but just barely.
Final certification is scheduled for Wednesday morning by the Secretary of State. Also expected first thing Wednesday morning is the court ruling on a request for an injunction in the certification filed by Washington Families Standing Together (WAFST). The court heard arguments on that question this afternoon. If the ruling is in favor of WAFST, the referendum would fail to qualify because up to 36,000 invalid signatures that the Secretary of State accepted in error would be thrown out.
Addendum: There may still be an opportunity to challenge the certification in court after the fact, if need be. The law provides a 5-day window for challenge, although it isn’t clear if the basis of WAFST’s challenge would be permitted. I guess we’ll hear more about that soon enough if it comes to that.
The security and legal stability of almost 5,900 pairs of domestic partners and their children hangs tenuously in the balance.
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Related
* WAFST.org files suit over illegitimate Referendum 71 signatures
* Judge Assignment Gives Gary Randall Agita (and a fundraising hook)
* Larry Stickney’s bid for Special Rights fails
UPDATE: Some details coming in from today’s hearing. The lawyer for the SoS had to answer on two points raised by WAFST:
1. Several thousand petitions were accepted by the SoS in error because the petition circulator’s declaration was either not signed, or was stamped with the name of the campaign manager, Larry Stickney.
2. Although all petition signers are by law required to already be registered voters, the SoS considered valid signatures from people who registered as late as the day before their signature get a third check.
The attorney for the SoS presented some interesting excuses for his actions. In the matter of the unsigned petition declarations, they said that the SoS was bound by the advice of the Attorney General, who in 2006 released an opinion that while the law requires the declaration to be printed in the petition, there is nothing in the law stating that anyone need write their name on the the line provided for that purpose, which comes right after the word “I”. (The AG didn’t seem to have anopinion on whether signing a name there fraudulently was equally acceptable.)
On the matter of late-registering voters, the SoS’s lawyer contended that the SoS is unable to determine both when someone actually filled out a voter registration card and when they signed a petition. He also pulled out the tiny violin and described how inconvenient it is for some theoretical poor new voter to follow the letter of the law and be registered before signing. The scenario went something like this: a non-voter sees a petition they want to sign, fills out voter registration card and gets it stamped somewhere official to prove they’re registered, then runs back out and HOPES that the petition circulator is still out there. Convenience, in other words, is more important than following the law, according to the SoS’s lawyer.
REMINDER about what is at stake
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.
DONATE TO WASHINGTON FAMILIES STANDING TOGETHER
PRINT AND DISTRIBUTE HANDOUTS AND PLACARDS
Referendum 71 voters will be asked to approve or reject 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 ___Ballot Measure Summary
Same-sex couples, or any couple that includes one person age sixty-two or older, may register as a domestic partnership with the state. Registered domestic partnerships are not marriages, and marriage is prohibited except between one man and one woman. This bill would expand the rights, responsibilities, and obligations of registered domestic partners and their families to include all rights, responsibilities, and obligations granted by or imposed by state law on married couples and their families.
9 Comments
Thoughts and a ChallengeQuite a few thoughts gong through my head here in Seattle:
1. Thanks to Pam and the gang for giving so much attention to the R-71 debacle here in Washington. You all do a great job!
2. I hope Judge Spector rules on the side of the law. So many petitions were submitted in blatant violation of state law.
3. I gave a modest contribution to No on 1 in Maine. Now I challenge someone from Maine to make a modest contribution to WAFST. We’re all in this together!
What a fucking great blog! Nothing like getting news from a “twisted lesbian sister” and her gang. Keep up the great work.
Lurleen, can you report on the oral argument today?I am not sure if you were there, but it would be great to hear how it went, which way the judge seemed to be leaning, etc. Also, did the master check bias issue get raised?
As for the result of the signature review today, I have absolutely no doubt that the outcome is fraudulent.
I am not an ideologue. I don’t believe that the result has to follow my preference. I was truly prepared for R71 to qualify fair and square. But this result, given the master check bias, is without a doubt fraudulent. If only .75% of the accepted signatures were accepted erroneously by the temps, then the result is wrong. And every grouping of signatures had a much higher temp error rate than .75%. The error rate in the sample master check of 226 signatures was 13%. This is a ripoff of the WA constitution.
i think it’s fair to saythe the judge was appropriately inscrutable.
to my knowledge, the “three bites of the apple” issue was not raised. the two points addressed were the ones i describe in the “update” section above.
OK, my next donation…Will be going to Washington for R-71! This MUST be approved if we are to protect Washington families’ civil rights AND build more LGBT civil rights successes throughout The West.
Just sent a small amountfrom Iowa, now to go send the same to Maine.
The Box Turtle is reportingthat the judge will release her ruling Wednsday. Fingers crossed.
yes, both her ruling and the SOS’s certificationare scheduled for wednesday morning. fingers crossed for sure!
Thank you, LurleenI really appreciate the diligence with which you have consistently reported on this. Your reporting has been my go-to site.
to contribute money and/or time.
We have a local incorporation effort underway here that I’ve been marginally involved with for about a year and a half, but this takes precedence. I sent a (for me)sizeable contribution to Washington Families Standing Together a couple of days ago and urge anyone in the state of Washington (and those outside–hint to CA readers to whom I sent significant contributions for No on
The concept of a majority voting on the rights of a minority still boggles my mind.
Sam Reed has shown himself to be just another Republican.
thanksThanks RecoveringTexan for your contribution, seaharp for your challenge and both for your kind words. This will be a slog, but we can do it is everyone genuinely participates like you two are doing!