The Stranger’s Dominic Holden reported on the Secretary of State’s Announcement,
The organizers, Protect Marriage Washington, have made arrangements to bring in boxloads of voter signatures at 2 p.m. Saturday at the Secretary of State’s Office in the Capitol. It takes 120,573 valid signatures to earn a place on the Nov. 3 statewide ballot. Election officials suggest a 25 percent pad, or roughly 150k, to offset duplicate or invalid signatures.
What does this tell us? Nothing really. Anti equality petition gatherers boasted they had 75,000 signatures as of July 15th. This was a guess on their part, though. They also boasted they have 1000 volunteers helping them. I wondering if they are counting the potential hundreds of people who requested petitions as a strategy to oppose their campaign? There are also several reports that they have paid signature gatherers working for them, and that said petition gatherers are lieing about what the petition is all about.
So with five days left we have more questions than answers. Just in case they are successful it doesn’t hurt to start talking about the future. If Referendum 71 does make the ballot, it suddenly becomes our best friend. We need to tell everyone we know to approve 71 to retain the domestic partnership expansion bill of 2009. Confusing right? This is exactly why each and every one of us is going to have to pitch in and help spread the message.
