This Washington

Re: Releasing Signatures

By Josh Feit August 12, 2010

Assistant Director of Elections Katie Blinn at the Washington Secretary of State's Office has what could be a  smarty-pants endnote for the state's brief in the upcoming R-71 case. The state is arguing that names of people who signed the anti-gay rights initiative should be made public while the plaintiffs will argue that releasing the names would endanger signers.

Blinn did a little research—calculating the number of signatures that have been released due to public records requests prior to R-71.  Answer: 2 million.

"The point is," she wrote to her Secretary of State colleagues in an email, "we know of no harassment or intimidation that has resulted from these public records requests."

Here's what she found:



























































2006 & 2007 917 Motor Vehicle Charges 265,809
2006 & 2007 920 Estate Tax 395,219
2009 933 Regulation of Private Property 317,353
2007 937 Energy Resources 337,804
2008 1029 Long-Term Care 318,047
2009 1033 Limiting certain  revenue 315,444
Total Signatures Released 1,949,676

.
You may not think these initiatives are as controversial as R-71, but honestly, people can get damn serious about the MVET and property rights and renewable energy.
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