Anti-gay backers of Ref. 71 filed a federal lawsuit to conceal the names of those people signing the petition. U.S. District Judge Benjamin H. Settle in Tacoma heard arguments today at 2:30pm from the Protect Washington Families organization lead by Larry Stickney.
Judge Settle agreed to the temporary restraining order after the group argued their case on…
Constitutional grounds, claiming state disclosure law “chills free speech protected under the First Amendment, particularly when it is reasonably probable that those exercising their First Amendment rights would be subjected to threats and harassment.”
Details are here.
Next up for Ref. 71 is a firm signature count and then the petitions will go through a full signature check rather than a random-sample check.
Elections official Shane Hamlin says, “We are reasonably confident they failed to submit enough signatures to rely on a random sampling method to verify the validity of the signatures. So we are preparing to conduct a full signature verification.” The final decision will be made once the crews have a firm signature count.
