There is a schism in California between Equality California and the popular will of the people which is supported by the Courage Campaign. Equality California put out a big press release yesterday claiming the challenge to proposition 8 would not be until 2012. They claimed it would take that long to persuade 3% of California voters that equality is a good thing. Prop 8 only passed by a 2.5% margin in 2008. They also do not think they can raise enough money to make a go of it in 2010. Equality California was responsible for the highly criticized campaign that lost in 2008.
The Secretary of State continues to verify signatures during the referendum 71 qualification process. There is a lot of chatter on blogs and newspapers about whether referendum 71 will qualify, and several people are beginning to jump to the false conclusion that because the data is showing an increasing number of invalid signatures that this fight is nearly over. At this early stage it is not only mathematically inaccurate to draw conclusions based on daily counts, it is politically dangerous.
The Secretary of State’s office announced on Tuesday through their blog that they will conduct a complete verification of the entire petition rather than a 3 % sampling. While I think it is fantastic that every single signature will be scrutinized, it could be several weeks before we know the results.
It does not hurt to start thinking about the future. What if Referendum 71 does qualify for the ballot? What next? We need to switch our thinking from decline to sign to Approve Referendum 71, Preserve the Domestic Partnership Law. That’s right, Approve. This is how the referendum will look if it makes the ballot in November:
Referendum 71 has absolutely nothing to do with same-sex marriage equality. This man is blatantly lying about his intentions.
Yesterday I wrote about potential fraud and intimidation from referendum 71 petition gatherers, particularly by Dan Ricca a migrant paid signature gatherer. I wrote about election fraud in Orange County California and Oregon that Dan Ricca was closely involved with. It turns out that was not the end of the story.