Laurel – do you know WHY candidates are routinely advised to get at LEAST two times as many signatures as they need on their nomination papers?
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It’s because people sign with their P.O. Box instead of street address. Or sign even though they haven’t returned the town census and have been removed from the rolls. Or mistakenly believe that their registration ‘follows’ them, and don’t know they have to register again at their new Town Hall (Hey! I CHANGED with the RMV – why isn’t my new VOTING address here? Don’t you REGISTER with the RMV?)
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If I wrote the ad, I would have said ‘123,356 CERTIFIED signatures’ as THAT is an impressive enough figure. Still – the margin of rejected signatures is about 1/3, WELL under what candidates are told to expect to have thrown out. I AM NOT saying there was zero fraud – I haven’t been in Everett except to drive through (what happened to those banners downtown?) for years, and I am not calling you a liar when you say you witnessed fraud.
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But I AM saying that attributing the entire 46,644 difference to deliberate fraud is just too much, even by common sense standards. And it doesn’t say ALL the people of Mass. have signed – jsut enough to make it stick as a petition.
laurelsays
VOM is running a “Christian morals” campaign. Much of it was done right in the churches (this I personally witnessed too). Don’t you think it suspect that a “Christian” operation not only turns a blind eye to PROVEN fraud carried out in their cause, but QUOTES KNOWN FRAUDULENT NUMBERS? It’s ok for a Christian to lie and cheat as long as they ultimately get what they want? I don’t think so. I think most real Christians also don’t think so. VOM is a hate organization, masquerading as a Christian organization. The company they hired to get signatures for them has a well-known record of unethical, fraudulent methodology. Maybe they got hoodwinked themselves by the nepharious signature gathering firm? If so, why not just come clean and admit it? Admit their pure Christian trust was abused and deceived? But they didn’t. They just denied the truth, revealing the kind of organization they truly are.
…please show me where this is a ‘Christian Morals’ campaign.
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And be careful – MANY Christians in the state are not Roman Catholics, so blaming that denomination is not ‘proof’.
laurelsays
i never mentioned any particular church – i said “in the churches”. this includes RCC yes, but also protestants and another religion which calls itself christian in opposition to the opinion of many self-proclaimed “real” christians (LDS). that you took “in the churches” to simultaneously mean the RCC and as a slight to non-RCCers says something about your state of mind, but nothing about my opine.
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here is a link to verbage and other links to more verbage showing the “christian morals” aspect of VOM’s campaign of discrimination. but PP, can you really that unaware that the whole anti-equality hate campaign uses a fake christian line of “reasoning” and relies heavily on cherry-picked biblical verses? you only have to listen to 2 words out of the mouth of any VOM official to have this confirmed. all of their public spokesmen and their main architects are clergymen like Mineau and that guy form Lion of Judah. in fact, go to vom’s news page. they frequently make a big deal that they are god’s phalanx** united against this abominable threat.
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**i have found it quite fascinating that hatred for gay people has been the tie that binds these disparate groups of religionists that otherwise would look askance at each other at best. you should have heard the white vom-ers refer to the asian christian churces, for example, as the “foreign” churches, and laugh behind the back of the one unitarian who wanted to know how he could help. reaching out to “others” for help in the petition campaign was clearly onerous to the likes of Willington & Co. If it weren’t for the purpose of legal discrimination against LGBT people, I’d find it quite heartening that the vom-ers had found a way to reach across the great cultural, racial and class divides that splinter our society. But this “brotherhood” won’t last past the final vote. It is a marriage of convenience, and the white vom-ers will drop most contact with the brown ones when they are no longer useful in the moment. Is it any mistake that their rainbow coalition is fronted by a white man (Mineau)? what white people who are not vom-ers even know the names of the black and latino clergy who have ponied up their people and resources to push the petition and amendment? just another case of the white guys using the good faith of the brown guys.
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As I suspected, your ‘source’ is Roman Catholic rhetoric. and Mr. Mineau represents himself and his adherents, not Christianity. You need to go to a chuch sometime.
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BTW – most Scripture being thrown about in this debate is also from the Torah – why are Judaic opponents immune from your condemnation? (And please don’t tell me there aren’t any).
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Interesting that you took the time to seperately slam LDS and not SDA or the Amish. No political motive there, right?
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‘Christians’ aren’t a monolith, which makes it difficult for those who seek to slander them. As a matter of doctrine, they’re all over the map on this from gay Episcopalian bishops to shunners of gay people. You may as well say Scorpios oppose gay marriage – there’s about as much cohesion. But you seem to have an anti-Christian bias, which is sad.
laurelsays
Miranda, from Lion of Judah is the author of “Master Plan”. Did you even bother to read around the link before jumping to poor conclusions about me? Maybe you concede the term “The Church” to the RCs, but apparently Rev. Miranda does not! Where he gets his rhetoric I cannot say, but he is not Father Miranda, he is Reverend Miranda. That, to my protestantly-trained ears, means he is not RC. Maybe he or someone in his congregation will chime in an clarify for us.
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Regarding the LDS, I did not slam them. I slammed the christinas who judge LDSers to be not-christians, despite the LDSers belief that they themselves are christians. Who is correct, I cannot say. But it is clear that some people think only they are “true” christians.
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You should also note that I was not deriding christians, but rather deriding people who wear a cloak of christianity to hide or find excuses for their bigotry. that’s not anti-christian bias on my part, that’s being able to acknowledge reality.
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garysays
Seems a little over the top to assume that diff between those collected and those certified were fraudulent.
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Reasons for non-certified signature:
In the agreed on classification chart, the parties cite the following reasons why petitions were disqualified: (1) underlining of text in summary; (2) highlighting of text in summary; (3) highlighting of the words “City or Town”; (4) highlighting of name of city or town; (5) highlighting of filing deadlines; (6) name of city or town written above summary which does not call attention to or diminish legibility of summary; (7) handwritten number above summary which does not call attention to or diminish legibility of summary; (8) name and telephone number above summary which does not call attention to or diminish legibility of text; (9) number near first ten signers’ information or Secretary’s certification which does not call attention to or diminish legibility of information or certification; (10) name of city or town near first ten signers’ information or Secretary’s certification which does not call attention to or diminish legibility of information or certification; (11) telephone number at top of petition; (12) date at top of petition; (13) name and telephone number at top of petition; (14) name at top of petition; (15) number at top of petition; (16) name of city or town at top of petition; (17) instruction at top of petition; (18) number and initial at top of petition; (19) the word “over” at bottom of petition; (20) no place for registrars to certify petition because of copying error; (21) wrong number of signature lines on petition because of copying error; (22) two “front” sides because of copying error; (23) “attention voters” line on top back of petition missing or legibility of line diminished because of copying error; (24) spotted highlighting which does not draw attention to or diminish legibility of summary, first ten signers’ information, or Secretary’s certification; (25) spotted highlighting which does draw attention to or diminish legibility of summary, first ten signers’ information, or Secretary’s certification; (26) scribbles or doodles which do not draw attention to or diminish legibility of summary, first ten signers’ information, or Secretary’s certification; (27) scribbles or doodles which do draw attention to or diminish legibility of summary, first ten signers’ information, or Secretary’s certification; (28) other: a. “Registrars of Voters” circled in deadline box; b. “street address” written beside “now registered at”; c. writing at bottom on back; d. miscopied: missing words in summary, on right side of front; e. name and number at top on back; f. instructions highlighted; g. back missing because of copying error; h. altered deadline; i. name of city placed vertically next to signature lines.
laurelsays
Seems a little, um, naive (to be nice) of you to not include “fraudulently coppied from a petition for another amendment”, in your list, because that has been proven and established as having happened. Where did you get that laundry list, anyway: American’s Most Common Ways to Legally and Ethically Make Mistakes on a Petition? Yeah, there are many ways.
having worked on many campaigns I’ve seen a whole sheet of signatures get thrown out because there was a stray line across the sheet. It’s a known trick by some people who don’t support certain candidates to invalidate a list. Kind of signature version of keep a phone volunteer on the phone as long as you can if you disagree with their candidate.
laurelsays
We are talking about employees of VoteOnMarriage fraudulently hand copying whole pages of names from a petition sheet for one amendment onto a petition sheet for the anti-equality amendment. This is FRAUD. Numerous people’s names were stolen in this way and fraudulently placed onto the anti-equality petition. I have seen entire pages of this petition written out in one writing style and one ink color! These were among the 47,000 “signatures” the Secretary of State would not certify, yet VoteOnMarriage claims them in their tally of “The people of MA speaking”. Rubbish! The people of MA are not frauds and forgers, but clearly VOMers are willing to hire people who are. This is not a stray mark on a page, this is DELIBERATE FRAUD PAYED FOR BY VOTEONMARRIAGE. If I were a contributor to VOM, I’d be incensed that they abused my money and trust in that way. That is not the American way. That is not Democracy. That is amoral win-at-all-costs criminality.
it doesn’t matter how many were manufactured, since vom counts all the uncertified signatures as valid in their fraudulent radio ad tally. when the attorney general finally issues a report, we will know the breakdown of the rejected signatures. i will remind you though that manufactured signatures is not the only honesty problem vom has. their payed signature gatherers also tricked many people into signing the hate amendment by making them think they were signing the wine amendment. read the transcripts on the hearings for details. i’m sure you know how to find them if you dare.
From the 170,000 supposedly collected to the 140,000 certified by town clerks that 30,000 loss is due to non-voters, or duplicates, or people not knowing their current voter information. In other words for VOM to claim 170,000 is outrageous. Mickey Mouse could have signed 15,000 times and Miney mouse 15,000 times to give Kris Mineau his “great groundswell of support.”
anthonysays
….who would handle such a complaint. It would be the FTC if this was commercial advertising and the FCC for obscenity, but who does take complaints for factually incorrect or deceptive political ads? Perhaps no one, it may very well be allowable to blatantly lie in the political arena. In this case however, the lie is not really so blatant, but more of an obfuscation. There were in fact 170,000 signatures collected. From a legal standpoint, calling the veracity of the radio spot into question seems a non-starter.
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Better in my opinion, to go after the radio stations playing the ad. Have you heard it on air or just online? If any radio stations that are not unapologetically politically aligned with the VOM movement play this ad I will gladly call them 20 times a day telling them I want them to take it off.
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laurelsays
there are pages and pages of “signatures” all written in the same hand. Clearly, someone took a petition for something else and just copied over the names and other information. 170,000 signatures were not collected. Manufactured signatures is a better term. We don’t know how many exactly, because last I heard, the Sec’y of State and Atty General were uninterested in examining the breadth of the fraud. MassEquality documented 1000 (IIRC), then had to stop due to lack of funds.
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In any case, claiming 170,000 as some legit number “collected” is hugely misleading.
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Good question about which radio stations this is on. I don’t know. Hopefully listeners will weigh in and let us know where they heard it, and I’ll do some more digging myself. Braodcast should start today according to the VOM email alert I got last night.
VoteOnMarriage Radio Ad Campaign Begins Today!
Dear Supporters of Marriage,
Today VoteOnMarriage began airing radio ads in support of the Marriage Amendment. Radio ads help us take our message to the people and educate them about their right to vote. The advertisements urge voters to call their state elected officials in advance of the May 9 Con-Con. The audio clip of the ad can be found on our website here:
Laurel, you do have a point aboutthe collected signatures thing, how the numbers differ.
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However, I have to disagree with you on another point. You say that “170,000 represents “the People of MA hav[ing] spoken”…erroneously implies that the signers represent ALL the people of MA”
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If a victorious candidate says that “the people have spoken”, they do not imply that they scored every possible vote in an election. We hear “the people have spoken” on the most arcane issues about which few people care (which color crayon to retire, for example). You seem to be undermining your very strong point about quoted numbers with a weak point about semantics.
laurelsays
123,356 / 6 million * 100% = 2%
I think that’s a far cry from even the slim “almost 50% of the people have spoken!” bush declared last election.
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But I concede that one statement can be heard and interpreted by different people differently.
kaisays
123,356 signatures = more signatures than ever before. In the 80s the previous record was set with about 100,000 for a tax related issue, I believe.
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Both those numbers far surpass the 65,000 or so needed to get on the ballot.
laurelsays
they chose to highlight a LIE. why is that, do you suppose? if 123K was a record in and of itself, why inflate it with fraudulent signatures?
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additionally, the MA population has increased since the 1980s. percentage-wise i’m not sure 123K in 2006 represents much if at all a greater proportion of the population than did 100K in the 80s.
Or any of the “trained” VoteOnMarriage volunteers? Because VOM wanted to give the “spin” or the appearance that this petition support was a statewide grassroots supported issue. Instead of following through and going to the churches like VOM promised in the beginning, it realized that the electorate and the leges needed to think that “average voters” couldn’t wait to sign this petition.
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The story here and the outrage is not in the numbers of signers but how they were obtained and how the easily duped electorate was used as a tool to take away a minority’s rights.
eaboclippersays
123,356/2M active voters =6.2%
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123,356/65000 = 189.7% of signatures needed to get on ballot.
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Should we look at any other numbers? Laurel, I applaud your passion on this issue, but you are fighting an old fight. Gear up for the inevitable vote, as it doesn’t look like you’ll be able to stop it. If the people are with you then they are with you, if they are not then they are not.
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I still haven’t made up my mind on how I will vote. but I should be allowed to vote.
laurelsays
vom trots out an old lie, i fight it anew. i see that you used the 123K number in your calculation rather than vom’s bogus 170K. thank you for agreeing with me through your example that 170K is indeed a bogus number.
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as for your choice of divisor, choose the number that makes you feel most robust. that does not change the fact that vom is pushing lies in their radio ad, nor does it change the fact that they have never owned up to the fraud they paid for.
eaboclippersays
voting on rights happens all the time. I believe people should have the right to take drugs if they want to. Yet it is voted down all the time.
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I believe in unfettered access to handguns as a constitutional right, yet it is voted against all the time.
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The bill of rights were originally voted into the constitution.
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The equal rights amendement to the constitution was voted on.
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There are numerous examples of where rights were voted on. That argument is not a good one. It plays to emotions not facts.
laurelsays
i amended my tagline to be more precise: it’s wrong to vote away anyone’s rights. if you disagree (or even if you agree), i suggest you write up a diary on the topic. it is way beyond the scope of this one, but is an interesting question.
but only with someone of the other sex. But don’t write up a diary topic saying that or Laurel will try to drive you out of the blogoshpere.
wahoowasays
I think a more correct way of putting forth Laurel’s statement would be that we don’t take popular votes to take away people’s existing rights.
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People do not currently have the right to take drugs, so there cannot be a vote to take that right away (and ironically, the Prohibition amendment was the only constitutional amendment to be adopted without going throught the state by state popular vote route and instead was done through a state by state convention mechanic).
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Votes on gun control legislation are generally done by legislative bodies. I am not aware (but could be mistaken here) of any votes by popular vote to limit gun “rights” (I won’t get into the underlying argument about whether the right exists).
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The bill or rights added rights, it did not take them away. The ERA sought to expand rights and by voting it down, no rights that existed were taken away from a group of people.
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When you look at it, it’s difficult, if not impossible to find a case where a public election was held to take away a civil right that was currently being enjoyed by a group of people from that group. A vote on equal marriage in Massachusetts would really be pretty unprecedented and could really lead to a slippery slope.
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It makes sense when you think about it. There are so many concepts built into the American form of government to prevent the minority for the “tyranny of the majority.” Allowing for popular votes on the civil rights of a minority group flies in the face of this underlying concept.
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And as has been discussed here before, the VOM crowd (for the most part…I know they are not a single-minded monolith) isn’t really worried about upholding democratic ideals, but are using the “let the people” vote mantra to hide their true anti-marriage agenda.
laurelsays
thank you for clarifying and laying that all out. EaBo? What wahoowa said!
wahoowasays
And to address CentralMassDad’s points regarding legislative versus popular votes, I do believe there is a difference.
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One of the idea of a legislature is to allow a smaller body to debate and deliberate on important topics and then vote on them. If the legislature should vote “wrongly” (for lack of a better word) we have the judiciary and the executive to place a check of sorts on them. It’s much harder to have an in depth debate on any issue when the number of people involved is in the thousands to millions (as opposed to the hundreds or less.) I know it sounds rather naive in today’s political climate, but I would rather have important decisions made after adequate debate and deliberation rather than based on 30 second radio and tv spots. I don’t know how you can have an adequate dialogue on almost any issue among the population as a whole as opposed to among a smaller group of legislatures.
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Our founding fathers thought there was a difference and built it into the Constitution. They basically thought it wasn’t prudent to leave important decisions to the masses, so the Senate wasn’t directly elected (but was elected by state legislatures) and the electoral college was installed. So the only part of the government that the people could vote for directly (on the federal level) was the House.
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I think, in the end, the idea is that ruling by mob mentality isn’t exactly an ideal form of government, and that is essentially what government by referendum does. I know Peter has spoke eloquently about town hall meetings that still exist in Massachusetts, but there is a big step from that to state-wide votes.
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Another point. I don’t really see anyone arguing that this should go to the ballot as part of a larger movement towards more direct lawmaking. So, if you are generally happy with the idea of the legislature and governor making your laws, why is this issue different?
dcsohlsays
[I]ronically, the Prohibition amendment was the only constitutional amendment to be adopted without going throught the state by state popular vote route and instead was done through a state by state convention mechanic.
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Furthermore, Prohibition was passed via the (usual) legislature method. Indeed, according to Wikipedia, it is the repeal of Prohibition (21st Amendment) that is the rarity among amendments for using the state convention method instead of the legislature method. The Bill of Rights and the 21st Amendment were ratified by state convention, and every single other amendment was ratified by state legislature.
In 1915, a referendum to give Massachusetts women the vote failed at the polls. In spite of its leading role in the nineteenth-century woman’s rights movement, Massachusetts was the first state to organize an association of women opposed to suffrage.
You try to draw a distinction between legislative votes and votes by referendum, but this seems like a distinction without a difference. Law is law, and can be created in a number of ways. But votes never happen to dimish rights?
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Unless it is the right to [keep and bear/own] arms.
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Unless it is the right to use drugs (the “war on drugs” replaced the war on booze after Prohibition ended. There was a time when the “coca” in Coca-cola refered to the same plant from which cocaine is derived. Cannabis was only made illegal after WWI, and only in 1937 at the federal level.)
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Unless it is the right to drink booze (Prohibition and the MADD induced increase in the drinking age)
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Unless it is the right to vote (!) (for those convicted of a crime, or even the mentally ill. Resident non-citizens were allowed to vote in some states and in federal territories until the 1920s, until that right was taken away.)
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Unless it is the right to reside where you choose (sex offenders can now be barred from certain communities, or from living near a school)
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Unless it is the right to preferences in hiring or admission based on one’s race, and pst discrimination against people of that race.
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Regardless of whether VOM should reach a referendum (it should not), this particular argument seeme to me to be unrooted in reality.
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paul-jamiesonsays
Why not use the number of voters instead of the entire population? That would be more truthful
eaboclippersays
I used actual voters.
laurelsays
changes the percentage who signed from 2% to 3%, according to EaBoClippers estimate of voter population. big whoop.
john-hosty-grinnellsays
For people to call Martha Coakley’s office and ask why we have not heard anything about the criminal investigation into the petition signature gathering fraud. I think a year and more is enough for them to draw a conclusion, and if there is more to do they can at least tell the public why. This information is valuable, but time pertinent too.
joetssays
I remember signing the VOM petition. I was proud to sign it. I went home and told my parents I signed it (they did too), yet when I go on knowthyneighbor, my name isn’t there. My parents are, but I’m not.
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You need to either admit that not all 40 something thousand signatures that were busted are fraud and correct that ridiculously inaccurate statement, or I’m just going to have to be similarly ridiculous and attribute the omission of my name to DELIBERATE, DOCUMENTED FRAUD*.
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If it’s erroneous you want, let’s be erroneous together!
… and I can’t find anywhere that Laurel made the assertion that “all 40 something thousand signatures that were busted are fraud”.
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Of course for me to be concerned I’d have to see at least 20,000 shown to be fraud. If its 19,999 I’m not sure it is such a big deal. [snark]
laurelsays
that any number of things could have happened to your signature? The most likely are that
1) you mistakenly used an address other than the one you are registered to vote under (you were registered to vote at the time, right?).
2) you did everything correctly, but someone made a stray mark on the sheet you signed and so the whole sheet was disqualified. As EaBo said above, some people deliberately sabotage sheets, but I have also been on several petition drives, and I can tell you that people also just do innocent dorky things like make a mistake and try to scribble it out. This can ruin a whole sheet inadvertently. How to sign a petition correctly needs to be covered in highschool civics classes (do they still exist?)
3) the signature gatherer lost the sheet you signed.
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if you think your name was withheld deliberately and fraudulently, you should contact the secretary of state immediately. have you done that? what was their response?
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i never claimed that all 44K rejected signatures were the result of fraud. you need to read more carefully. what i am pointing out is that VOM claims in their tally in the radio ad as “the people of MA speaking” a number which includes all the rejected signatures . well, we all know that many of those 44K rejects were fraudulent.
laurelsays
you did read carefully – my mistake and apologize for impugning your reading comprehension. in the diary i neglected to note that some of the 44K rejected signatures were undoubtedly rejected due to errant marks on the page, and perhaps anything on that laundry list gary provided. i have edited to diary to reflect what you rightly pointed out.
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the fact remains, however, that VOM is using an illigitimate, inflated number of 170K. 25% of that number represents pure trash, and it is a lie for them to use it.
joetssays
I was writing my reponse when you mea culpa’d
laurelsays
it is distressing to hear that you signed but your name didn’t ultimately get registered. as far as i am aware, most people currently concerned enough about the state of the MA petition initiative system to attend hearings are people who had the flip experience to yours. next time there is a hearing, i hope you will consider submitting an affidavit or testifying as to your experience. it is important that the system be fixed to minimize loss of legit signatures as well as to prevent the entry of fraudulent signatures. a voice from ‘the other side’ of the marriage issue but in support of initiative reform would be pretty meaningful i would think. after all, the initiative petition system needs to serve us all equally and fairly, even if the petition topic is not equality and fairness.
joetssays
This is from your diary:
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Math moment: The difference between 170,000 signatures collected and/or faked and 123,356 certified = *DELIBERATE, DOCUMENTED* FRAUD*.
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and this is from your response to me:
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i never claimed that all 44K rejected signatures were the result of fraud.
laurelsays
please see my comment directly above. you are correct. sorry for the mistake.
Stray marks do not matter for the voter’s name to appear on the state database or KnowThyNeighbor’s list. The town clerk’s do not reject petition sheets. That only happens at the Secretary of State’s level. The names are entered into the state database by the city and town clerks.
JoeTS, If you signed and your name did not appear on our website, it is for one of the following reasons: 1) the VOM collectors or other collectors did not submit the petition you signed to your town clerk 2) you are not a registered voter 3) the address you included does not match your registered addrees. You may want to check with your town clerk and verify your information.
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Also regarding the numbers. 123,365 names were filed with the Secretary of the Commonwealth. 148,000 were verified and recorded by town clerks. The town clerks do not reject sigs based on extraneous marks or even if they know a name was on a petition fraudulently.
joetssays
And while I have you, I’ve wondered something. If the intent of your website was to raise awareness of fraudulent signatures instead of publicly shame people, whom for your standpoint are haters, why is the site “knowthyneigbor” instead of something analogous to a truthful and fair petition system?
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“Knowthyneighbor” in of itself does not have positive connotations to it. I can see that being the site for people who advertise members of the community who are in like the KKK or something.
We have committed to creating an “all open petition” site if openmass.com does not.
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KnowThyNeighbor was not missioned to only expose fraud. We were sort of dragged into that and have been the organization which reported and educated the public during the petition cycle back in 2005.
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If you go to our site and really read what we are all about you will see that we posted the names to do what everyone hear at BMG heralds themselves in doing–civic engagement. I cannot name a gay person who has not discovered a good friend, family member or other person well-known to him or her whose name ended up as a signer of the petition. KTN was created to empower the LGBT community and supporters of equality to have those conversations with the people who would take away their rights, the rights and protections of their families and the rights of future generations.
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Not only was KTN publicly sanctioned by the Secretary of the Commonwealth, but it was un-officially endorced by our Attorney General’s Office too. The Secretary’s Legal Advisor told me that it was “my job” as essentially the antithesis of VoteOnMarriage to creat KnowThyNeighbor.
paul-jamiesonsays
Are they the guys who invoke the name Hitler for Mitt Romney? Mittler? yeah
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And aren’t they the guys who draw comparisons of Christians to the KKK and Nazi’s – oh yeah
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AND aren’t they the same folks who posted all the names and addresses of the petition signers in order to harass them? oh yeah
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Do not be fooled by these folks they take hate to a new level.
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Know thy Neighbor is a joke. Many in the gay community want nothing to do with them.
p>
When it comes to calmer heads prevailing, the gay community should also beware of turning to Tom Lang and Aaron Toleos, co-directors of KnowThyNeighbor.org. Lang and Toleos are publishing an online list of names and addresses of everyone who signs the anti-gay marriage people’s initiative amendment petition – allegedly to help Massachusetts residents “know thy neighbor” better. What it really amounts to is intimidation of neighbor.
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Evan Wolfson, the popular leader of Freedom to Marry, often speaks of three types of Americans when it comes to gay marriage: Those who oppose gay marriage no matter what, those who support gay marriage no matter what, and the vast majority of rational, just people who are in the persuadable middle. His advice? Don’t bother with the first group; it’s a waste of time and resources. Rally the second group; they can be mobilized. And reach out to the third group; they will respond to personal stories which touch on the American principles of love, equality and fairness.
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Those who sign the anti-gay marriage amendment petition, by and large, belong to the first group, the intractable anti-gay minority. Launching any sort of attack on these people – and making a high profile display of these people’s signatures is an attack – is not only a waste of time and energy, but ultimately will backfire among those in the middle.
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Furthermore, the title of the organization, Know Thy Neighbor, bastardizes the golden rule: Love thy neighbor as thyself. By perverting this universal maxim to justify intimidation only leads to setbacks and bad press, as witnessed by the justifiably condemnatory editorial in the Boston Herald on Friday, Sept. 9.
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It’s time that these activists return to the spirit of the golden rule and drop the intimidating hate tactics that we as gay people have had to endure most of our lives. After all, it was intimidation that provoked a bunch of drag queens in New York City to fight back against police force at Stonewall in 1969; imagine what intimidation could motivate in virulently anti-gay people
laurelsays
what are you suggesting? your comment prompted me to actually use the KTN database. if you are indeed the Paul Jamieson listed as a signer, then i assume you categorize yourself as stated above, viz
Those who sign the anti-gay marriage amendment petition, by and large, belong to the first group, the intractable anti-gay minority. Launching any sort of attack on these people – and making a high profile display of these people’s signatures is an attack – is not only a waste of time and energy, but ultimately will backfire among those in the middle.
then you ask us to
imagine what intimidation could motivate in virulently anti-gay people
so you are saying that you are intractibly anti-gay and because your name was listed on KTN you feel intimidated and are now motivated to do…what?
KnowThyNeighbor.org, the organization that tracked and followed this fraudulent petition cycle from A to Z had this to say at the recent Judiciary Hearing about tightening up the initiative petition process. EVERY type of bait and swithch was used to ge the signatures up to their “170,000” signatures claimed. The goal here for VOM was not to “double” the amount required but to acquire the greatest number for their “groundswell of public sentiment” spin.
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KnowThyNeighbor produced the paid signature gatherer used by VOM to tell of how the bait and switch occured. However, KTN tracked the bait and switch long after the paid signature gatherers left this state AND Kris Mineau of the Mass Family Institute even admitted to the paid gatherers having left before Channel 22 Springfield interviewed people who fell as victims see video on KTN’s home page. http://knowthyneighb…
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So, Ms. Porcupine, the logical explanation is that VOM volunteers which include some GOP State Committee members were versed and trained in the bait and switch tactics.
On September 7, 2005, GOP Chairman Darrell Crate, at a meeting at his house of SC members together with NRC committee man, Ron Kaufman, announced that the State GOP would be working “with” VoteOnMarriage. Considering the fraud and forgery that was so widespread during this process, under the guidance of VOM, I would say that the GOP was at least “guilty by association.”
There are 80 members. Not even Darrell’s house could accomodate them.
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You have been informed by a participant in that meeting, I assume. Ask them if it was a regular meeting or if regular members were informed.
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Likewise – was the entire sttendance SC members? Ron Kaufman isn’t a SC member, for instance. Or was this just a meeting of like minded people, some of whome were SC members?
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I DEEPLY resent your insinuation that the Mass GOP is guilty of deliberate ballot fraud. It is simply not so, and your ‘guilt by association’ is a leaky sieve, indeed.
centralmassdadsays
I am left to wonder why the Mass GOP didn’t stay as far away from this as possible. You may have noticed that moderate Republicans, until recently, had a knack for winning elections in this blue state. Social libertarian, lower taxes, fiscal respobsibility. Pretty good recipe over the years.
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I know that you are a Romney supporter, but surely you must know that by conspicuously throwing out the “social libertarian” ingredient, he made your pretty good recipe into poison.
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All the hoohah about Deval Patrick’s monumental electoral acheivement notwithswtanding, it was this poison that zapped Healy before she even started. I think that if the “parking lot stalker” was the actual Democratic candidate, he still would have won, so irritated with Mitt Dobson were we.
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It sure seems to me that Mitt’s presidential ambitions have crippled an already weak Massachusetts GOP. Why the Mass GOP chose to cooperate in this, rather than steering clear of this issue and cutting the guy loose, is beyond me.
WHAT makes Democrats think that the GOP is a monolith? ESPECIALLY the Mass GOP?
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I’ve kvetched before that Elizabet Dole, Ken Mehlman, et al, were able to arrive in Boston, give speeches, and leave without any media coverage whatsoever. But lock-step?
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I’m putting a link HERE to an old post of mine – about a meeting that took place within a couple of weeks of the evil secret conclave that Alexander has the secret emails about. SC members were at this too.
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In a party with Phil Travis, Tom Reilly and Jim Marzilli – why is it so hard for you to understand that there is no single set of opinions governing us all?
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BTW – last Sat. at the Seaport Issues Convention for the 6 New England States (whoops, no reporters there either!) Sen. John Sununu called for an end to arguing about divise social issues and a return to the issues that unite us – smaller, more efficient government, etc. So the social libertarian stock is on an upswing, at least here.
laurelsays
Maybe the Republicans aren’t a monolith in their minds, but they do have a penchant for presenting themselves as a in lock step to others. At least to the point of Thou Shalt Not Speak Ill of they Fellow Republicans, Even When They Are Undermining the American Way by Advocating For Civil Inequality and Bigotry. Thus spake Reagan.
joetssays
but a lot of Democrats just call me racist.
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So maybe they aren’t speaking ill because they just don’t see things the same way as you.
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As far as the 11th commandment, the only other commandment I see broken more is the deal with taking the Lords name in vain–a crime I am especially going to be Hail Marying for the next time I go to confession.
Back in June of 2006 an initiative petition drive was undertaken in Michigan to eliminate affirmative action http://www.woodtv.co…. It seems that 125,000 African-American voters were also victims of fraud in that initiative petition. A Michigan court made an interesting assesment, stating “the initiative petition sponsors targeted all Michigan voters for deception without regard to race.”
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Interesting fact to note, the paid signature gathering company accused of the massive deception in Michigan was one of the companies that gathered signatures for the anti-same-sex marriage petition here in Massachusetts in 2005.
joetssays
And weren’t you blown away by how not guilty you were?
However, I can’t beleive that MassEquality stopped looking for fraud due to having “run out of money.” There was another reason for that–due to state laws, MEQ’s response was mostly a press opportunity to affect the electorate and leges.
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KnowThyNeighbor received a telephone call from the Attorney General’s office about a week and a half after the petition cycle began in 2005 and was told directly that there would be “no civil charges filed” based on bait and switch or lying by the paid sig gatherers or VOM. Why? Because the laws in the Commonwealth would not allow it. I was told this and ordered NOT to post it on my blog at KTN, because “the sponsors of the petition would know how easy it is for them to lie.” My response was “they already know.”
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This is why 1) the laws need to be strengthened areound initiative petitions 2) constitutional change needs to be handled much differently with signatures required or votes necessary in the legislature and 3) we MUST HAVE an open process with names of signatories posted and these signers need to be contacted and informed on which petitions their names appear.
Laurel – do you know WHY candidates are routinely advised to get at LEAST two times as many signatures as they need on their nomination papers?
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It’s because people sign with their P.O. Box instead of street address. Or sign even though they haven’t returned the town census and have been removed from the rolls. Or mistakenly believe that their registration ‘follows’ them, and don’t know they have to register again at their new Town Hall (Hey! I CHANGED with the RMV – why isn’t my new VOTING address here? Don’t you REGISTER with the RMV?)
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If I wrote the ad, I would have said ‘123,356 CERTIFIED signatures’ as THAT is an impressive enough figure. Still – the margin of rejected signatures is about 1/3, WELL under what candidates are told to expect to have thrown out. I AM NOT saying there was zero fraud – I haven’t been in Everett except to drive through (what happened to those banners downtown?) for years, and I am not calling you a liar when you say you witnessed fraud.
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But I AM saying that attributing the entire 46,644 difference to deliberate fraud is just too much, even by common sense standards. And it doesn’t say ALL the people of Mass. have signed – jsut enough to make it stick as a petition.
VOM is running a “Christian morals” campaign. Much of it was done right in the churches (this I personally witnessed too). Don’t you think it suspect that a “Christian” operation not only turns a blind eye to PROVEN fraud carried out in their cause, but QUOTES KNOWN FRAUDULENT NUMBERS? It’s ok for a Christian to lie and cheat as long as they ultimately get what they want? I don’t think so. I think most real Christians also don’t think so. VOM is a hate organization, masquerading as a Christian organization. The company they hired to get signatures for them has a well-known record of unethical, fraudulent methodology. Maybe they got hoodwinked themselves by the nepharious signature gathering firm? If so, why not just come clean and admit it? Admit their pure Christian trust was abused and deceived? But they didn’t. They just denied the truth, revealing the kind of organization they truly are.
…please show me where this is a ‘Christian Morals’ campaign.
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And be careful – MANY Christians in the state are not Roman Catholics, so blaming that denomination is not ‘proof’.
i never mentioned any particular church – i said “in the churches”. this includes RCC yes, but also protestants and another religion which calls itself christian in opposition to the opinion of many self-proclaimed “real” christians (LDS). that you took “in the churches” to simultaneously mean the RCC and as a slight to non-RCCers says something about your state of mind, but nothing about my opine.
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here is a link to verbage and other links to more verbage showing the “christian morals” aspect of VOM’s campaign of discrimination. but PP, can you really that unaware that the whole anti-equality hate campaign uses a fake christian line of “reasoning” and relies heavily on cherry-picked biblical verses? you only have to listen to 2 words out of the mouth of any VOM official to have this confirmed. all of their public spokesmen and their main architects are clergymen like Mineau and that guy form Lion of Judah. in fact, go to vom’s news page. they frequently make a big deal that they are god’s phalanx** united against this abominable threat.
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**i have found it quite fascinating that hatred for gay people has been the tie that binds these disparate groups of religionists that otherwise would look askance at each other at best. you should have heard the white vom-ers refer to the asian christian churces, for example, as the “foreign” churches, and laugh behind the back of the one unitarian who wanted to know how he could help. reaching out to “others” for help in the petition campaign was clearly onerous to the likes of Willington & Co. If it weren’t for the purpose of legal discrimination against LGBT people, I’d find it quite heartening that the vom-ers had found a way to reach across the great cultural, racial and class divides that splinter our society. But this “brotherhood” won’t last past the final vote. It is a marriage of convenience, and the white vom-ers will drop most contact with the brown ones when they are no longer useful in the moment. Is it any mistake that their rainbow coalition is fronted by a white man (Mineau)? what white people who are not vom-ers even know the names of the black and latino clergy who have ponied up their people and resources to push the petition and amendment? just another case of the white guys using the good faith of the brown guys.
THE church.
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As I suspected, your ‘source’ is Roman Catholic rhetoric. and Mr. Mineau represents himself and his adherents, not Christianity. You need to go to a chuch sometime.
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BTW – most Scripture being thrown about in this debate is also from the Torah – why are Judaic opponents immune from your condemnation? (And please don’t tell me there aren’t any).
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Interesting that you took the time to seperately slam LDS and not SDA or the Amish. No political motive there, right?
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‘Christians’ aren’t a monolith, which makes it difficult for those who seek to slander them. As a matter of doctrine, they’re all over the map on this from gay Episcopalian bishops to shunners of gay people. You may as well say Scorpios oppose gay marriage – there’s about as much cohesion. But you seem to have an anti-Christian bias, which is sad.
Miranda, from Lion of Judah is the author of “Master Plan”. Did you even bother to read around the link before jumping to poor conclusions about me? Maybe you concede the term “The Church” to the RCs, but apparently Rev. Miranda does not! Where he gets his rhetoric I cannot say, but he is not Father Miranda, he is Reverend Miranda. That, to my protestantly-trained ears, means he is not RC. Maybe he or someone in his congregation will chime in an clarify for us.
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Regarding the LDS, I did not slam them. I slammed the christinas who judge LDSers to be not-christians, despite the LDSers belief that they themselves are christians. Who is correct, I cannot say. But it is clear that some people think only they are “true” christians.
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You should also note that I was not deriding christians, but rather deriding people who wear a cloak of christianity to hide or find excuses for their bigotry. that’s not anti-christian bias on my part, that’s being able to acknowledge reality.
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Seems a little over the top to assume that diff between those collected and those certified were fraudulent.
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Reasons for non-certified signature:
Seems a little, um, naive (to be nice) of you to not include “fraudulently coppied from a petition for another amendment”, in your list, because that has been proven and established as having happened. Where did you get that laundry list, anyway: American’s Most Common Ways to Legally and Ethically Make Mistakes on a Petition? Yeah, there are many ways.
link
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It’s the SJC’s ‘naive’ list.
having worked on many campaigns I’ve seen a whole sheet of signatures get thrown out because there was a stray line across the sheet. It’s a known trick by some people who don’t support certain candidates to invalidate a list. Kind of signature version of keep a phone volunteer on the phone as long as you can if you disagree with their candidate.
We are talking about employees of VoteOnMarriage fraudulently hand copying whole pages of names from a petition sheet for one amendment onto a petition sheet for the anti-equality amendment. This is FRAUD. Numerous people’s names were stolen in this way and fraudulently placed onto the anti-equality petition. I have seen entire pages of this petition written out in one writing style and one ink color! These were among the 47,000 “signatures” the Secretary of State would not certify, yet VoteOnMarriage claims them in their tally of “The people of MA speaking”. Rubbish! The people of MA are not frauds and forgers, but clearly VOMers are willing to hire people who are. This is not a stray mark on a page, this is DELIBERATE FRAUD PAYED FOR BY VOTEONMARRIAGE. If I were a contributor to VOM, I’d be incensed that they abused my money and trust in that way. That is not the American way. That is not Democracy. That is amoral win-at-all-costs criminality.
it doesn’t matter how many were manufactured, since vom counts all the uncertified signatures as valid in their fraudulent radio ad tally. when the attorney general finally issues a report, we will know the breakdown of the rejected signatures. i will remind you though that manufactured signatures is not the only honesty problem vom has. their payed signature gatherers also tricked many people into signing the hate amendment by making them think they were signing the wine amendment. read the transcripts on the hearings for details. i’m sure you know how to find them if you dare.
From the 170,000 supposedly collected to the 140,000 certified by town clerks that 30,000 loss is due to non-voters, or duplicates, or people not knowing their current voter information. In other words for VOM to claim 170,000 is outrageous. Mickey Mouse could have signed 15,000 times and Miney mouse 15,000 times to give Kris Mineau his “great groundswell of support.”
….who would handle such a complaint. It would be the FTC if this was commercial advertising and the FCC for obscenity, but who does take complaints for factually incorrect or deceptive political ads? Perhaps no one, it may very well be allowable to blatantly lie in the political arena. In this case however, the lie is not really so blatant, but more of an obfuscation. There were in fact 170,000 signatures collected. From a legal standpoint, calling the veracity of the radio spot into question seems a non-starter.
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Better in my opinion, to go after the radio stations playing the ad. Have you heard it on air or just online? If any radio stations that are not unapologetically politically aligned with the VOM movement play this ad I will gladly call them 20 times a day telling them I want them to take it off.
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there are pages and pages of “signatures” all written in the same hand. Clearly, someone took a petition for something else and just copied over the names and other information. 170,000 signatures were not collected. Manufactured signatures is a better term. We don’t know how many exactly, because last I heard, the Sec’y of State and Atty General were uninterested in examining the breadth of the fraud. MassEquality documented 1000 (IIRC), then had to stop due to lack of funds.
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In any case, claiming 170,000 as some legit number “collected” is hugely misleading.
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Good question about which radio stations this is on. I don’t know. Hopefully listeners will weigh in and let us know where they heard it, and I’ll do some more digging myself. Braodcast should start today according to the VOM email alert I got last night.
Not Dr. Moreau, not Dr. Zavos, not Dr. Scott, not Anthony and Steve, not Laurel and Peter Porcupine.
Laurel, you do have a point aboutthe collected signatures thing, how the numbers differ.
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However, I have to disagree with you on another point. You say that “170,000 represents “the People of MA hav[ing] spoken”…erroneously implies that the signers represent ALL the people of MA”
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If a victorious candidate says that “the people have spoken”, they do not imply that they scored every possible vote in an election. We hear “the people have spoken” on the most arcane issues about which few people care (which color crayon to retire, for example). You seem to be undermining your very strong point about quoted numbers with a weak point about semantics.
123,356 / 6 million * 100% = 2%
I think that’s a far cry from even the slim “almost 50% of the people have spoken!” bush declared last election.
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But I concede that one statement can be heard and interpreted by different people differently.
123,356 signatures = more signatures than ever before. In the 80s the previous record was set with about 100,000 for a tax related issue, I believe.
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Both those numbers far surpass the 65,000 or so needed to get on the ballot.
they chose to highlight a LIE. why is that, do you suppose? if 123K was a record in and of itself, why inflate it with fraudulent signatures?
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additionally, the MA population has increased since the 1980s. percentage-wise i’m not sure 123K in 2006 represents much if at all a greater proportion of the population than did 100K in the 80s.
More money and media coverage of this issue than ever before. In the referrendum world where money walks signatures usually follow, unfortunately.
Or any of the “trained” VoteOnMarriage volunteers? Because VOM wanted to give the “spin” or the appearance that this petition support was a statewide grassroots supported issue. Instead of following through and going to the churches like VOM promised in the beginning, it realized that the electorate and the leges needed to think that “average voters” couldn’t wait to sign this petition.
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The story here and the outrage is not in the numbers of signers but how they were obtained and how the easily duped electorate was used as a tool to take away a minority’s rights.
123,356/2M active voters =6.2%
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123,356/65000 = 189.7% of signatures needed to get on ballot.
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Should we look at any other numbers? Laurel, I applaud your passion on this issue, but you are fighting an old fight. Gear up for the inevitable vote, as it doesn’t look like you’ll be able to stop it. If the people are with you then they are with you, if they are not then they are not.
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I still haven’t made up my mind on how I will vote. but I should be allowed to vote.
vom trots out an old lie, i fight it anew. i see that you used the 123K number in your calculation rather than vom’s bogus 170K. thank you for agreeing with me through your example that 170K is indeed a bogus number.
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as for your choice of divisor, choose the number that makes you feel most robust. that does not change the fact that vom is pushing lies in their radio ad, nor does it change the fact that they have never owned up to the fraud they paid for.
voting on rights happens all the time. I believe people should have the right to take drugs if they want to. Yet it is voted down all the time.
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I believe in unfettered access to handguns as a constitutional right, yet it is voted against all the time.
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The bill of rights were originally voted into the constitution.
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The equal rights amendement to the constitution was voted on.
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There are numerous examples of where rights were voted on. That argument is not a good one. It plays to emotions not facts.
i amended my tagline to be more precise: it’s wrong to vote away anyone’s rights. if you disagree (or even if you agree), i suggest you write up a diary on the topic. it is way beyond the scope of this one, but is an interesting question.
but only with someone of the other sex. But don’t write up a diary topic saying that or Laurel will try to drive you out of the blogoshpere.
I think a more correct way of putting forth Laurel’s statement would be that we don’t take popular votes to take away people’s existing rights.
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People do not currently have the right to take drugs, so there cannot be a vote to take that right away (and ironically, the Prohibition amendment was the only constitutional amendment to be adopted without going throught the state by state popular vote route and instead was done through a state by state convention mechanic).
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Votes on gun control legislation are generally done by legislative bodies. I am not aware (but could be mistaken here) of any votes by popular vote to limit gun “rights” (I won’t get into the underlying argument about whether the right exists).
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The bill or rights added rights, it did not take them away. The ERA sought to expand rights and by voting it down, no rights that existed were taken away from a group of people.
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When you look at it, it’s difficult, if not impossible to find a case where a public election was held to take away a civil right that was currently being enjoyed by a group of people from that group. A vote on equal marriage in Massachusetts would really be pretty unprecedented and could really lead to a slippery slope.
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It makes sense when you think about it. There are so many concepts built into the American form of government to prevent the minority for the “tyranny of the majority.” Allowing for popular votes on the civil rights of a minority group flies in the face of this underlying concept.
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And as has been discussed here before, the VOM crowd (for the most part…I know they are not a single-minded monolith) isn’t really worried about upholding democratic ideals, but are using the “let the people” vote mantra to hide their true anti-marriage agenda.
thank you for clarifying and laying that all out. EaBo? What wahoowa said!
And to address CentralMassDad’s points regarding legislative versus popular votes, I do believe there is a difference.
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One of the idea of a legislature is to allow a smaller body to debate and deliberate on important topics and then vote on them. If the legislature should vote “wrongly” (for lack of a better word) we have the judiciary and the executive to place a check of sorts on them. It’s much harder to have an in depth debate on any issue when the number of people involved is in the thousands to millions (as opposed to the hundreds or less.) I know it sounds rather naive in today’s political climate, but I would rather have important decisions made after adequate debate and deliberation rather than based on 30 second radio and tv spots. I don’t know how you can have an adequate dialogue on almost any issue among the population as a whole as opposed to among a smaller group of legislatures.
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Our founding fathers thought there was a difference and built it into the Constitution. They basically thought it wasn’t prudent to leave important decisions to the masses, so the Senate wasn’t directly elected (but was elected by state legislatures) and the electoral college was installed. So the only part of the government that the people could vote for directly (on the federal level) was the House.
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I think, in the end, the idea is that ruling by mob mentality isn’t exactly an ideal form of government, and that is essentially what government by referendum does. I know Peter has spoke eloquently about town hall meetings that still exist in Massachusetts, but there is a big step from that to state-wide votes.
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Another point. I don’t really see anyone arguing that this should go to the ballot as part of a larger movement towards more direct lawmaking. So, if you are generally happy with the idea of the legislature and governor making your laws, why is this issue different?
[I]ronically, the Prohibition amendment was the only constitutional amendment to be adopted without going throught the state by state popular vote route and instead was done through a state by state convention mechanic.
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No amendment has ever been voted on by the popular vote. It’s never part of the process. The choices for ratification are for the state legislature to ratify it, or to hold a state convention for the purposes of ratification. (Congress can force states to use one method or the other if it sees fit.)
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Furthermore, Prohibition was passed via the (usual) legislature method. Indeed, according to Wikipedia, it is the repeal of Prohibition (21st Amendment) that is the rarity among amendments for using the state convention method instead of the legislature method. The Bill of Rights and the 21st Amendment were ratified by state convention, and every single other amendment was ratified by state legislature.
…and granted by men, since women couldn’t vote?
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http://www.massmomen…
You try to draw a distinction between legislative votes and votes by referendum, but this seems like a distinction without a difference. Law is law, and can be created in a number of ways. But votes never happen to dimish rights?
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Unless it is the right to [keep and bear/own] arms.
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Unless it is the right to use drugs (the “war on drugs” replaced the war on booze after Prohibition ended. There was a time when the “coca” in Coca-cola refered to the same plant from which cocaine is derived. Cannabis was only made illegal after WWI, and only in 1937 at the federal level.)
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Unless it is the right to drink booze (Prohibition and the MADD induced increase in the drinking age)
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Unless it is the right to vote (!) (for those convicted of a crime, or even the mentally ill. Resident non-citizens were allowed to vote in some states and in federal territories until the 1920s, until that right was taken away.)
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Unless it is the right to reside where you choose (sex offenders can now be barred from certain communities, or from living near a school)
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Unless it is the right to preferences in hiring or admission based on one’s race, and pst discrimination against people of that race.
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Regardless of whether VOM should reach a referendum (it should not), this particular argument seeme to me to be unrooted in reality.
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Why not use the number of voters instead of the entire population? That would be more truthful
I used actual voters.
changes the percentage who signed from 2% to 3%, according to EaBoClippers estimate of voter population. big whoop.
For people to call Martha Coakley’s office and ask why we have not heard anything about the criminal investigation into the petition signature gathering fraud. I think a year and more is enough for them to draw a conclusion, and if there is more to do they can at least tell the public why. This information is valuable, but time pertinent too.
I remember signing the VOM petition. I was proud to sign it. I went home and told my parents I signed it (they did too), yet when I go on knowthyneighbor, my name isn’t there. My parents are, but I’m not.
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You need to either admit that not all 40 something thousand signatures that were busted are fraud and correct that ridiculously inaccurate statement, or I’m just going to have to be similarly ridiculous and attribute the omission of my name to DELIBERATE, DOCUMENTED FRAUD*.
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If it’s erroneous you want, let’s be erroneous together!
… and I can’t find anywhere that Laurel made the assertion that “all 40 something thousand signatures that were busted are fraud”.
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Of course for me to be concerned I’d have to see at least 20,000 shown to be fraud. If its 19,999 I’m not sure it is such a big deal. [snark]
that any number of things could have happened to your signature? The most likely are that
1) you mistakenly used an address other than the one you are registered to vote under (you were registered to vote at the time, right?).
2) you did everything correctly, but someone made a stray mark on the sheet you signed and so the whole sheet was disqualified. As EaBo said above, some people deliberately sabotage sheets, but I have also been on several petition drives, and I can tell you that people also just do innocent dorky things like make a mistake and try to scribble it out. This can ruin a whole sheet inadvertently. How to sign a petition correctly needs to be covered in highschool civics classes (do they still exist?)
3) the signature gatherer lost the sheet you signed.
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if you think your name was withheld deliberately and fraudulently, you should contact the secretary of state immediately. have you done that? what was their response?
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i never claimed that all 44K rejected signatures were the result of fraud. you need to read more carefully. what i am pointing out is that VOM claims in their tally in the radio ad as “the people of MA speaking” a number which includes all the rejected signatures . well, we all know that many of those 44K rejects were fraudulent.
you did read carefully – my mistake and apologize for impugning your reading comprehension. in the diary i neglected to note that some of the 44K rejected signatures were undoubtedly rejected due to errant marks on the page, and perhaps anything on that laundry list gary provided. i have edited to diary to reflect what you rightly pointed out.
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the fact remains, however, that VOM is using an illigitimate, inflated number of 170K. 25% of that number represents pure trash, and it is a lie for them to use it.
I was writing my reponse when you mea culpa’d
it is distressing to hear that you signed but your name didn’t ultimately get registered. as far as i am aware, most people currently concerned enough about the state of the MA petition initiative system to attend hearings are people who had the flip experience to yours. next time there is a hearing, i hope you will consider submitting an affidavit or testifying as to your experience. it is important that the system be fixed to minimize loss of legit signatures as well as to prevent the entry of fraudulent signatures. a voice from ‘the other side’ of the marriage issue but in support of initiative reform would be pretty meaningful i would think. after all, the initiative petition system needs to serve us all equally and fairly, even if the petition topic is not equality and fairness.
This is from your diary:
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and this is from your response to me:
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please see my comment directly above. you are correct. sorry for the mistake.
Stray marks do not matter for the voter’s name to appear on the state database or KnowThyNeighbor’s list. The town clerk’s do not reject petition sheets. That only happens at the Secretary of State’s level. The names are entered into the state database by the city and town clerks.
JoeTS, If you signed and your name did not appear on our website, it is for one of the following reasons: 1) the VOM collectors or other collectors did not submit the petition you signed to your town clerk 2) you are not a registered voter 3) the address you included does not match your registered addrees. You may want to check with your town clerk and verify your information.
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Also regarding the numbers. 123,365 names were filed with the Secretary of the Commonwealth. 148,000 were verified and recorded by town clerks. The town clerks do not reject sigs based on extraneous marks or even if they know a name was on a petition fraudulently.
And while I have you, I’ve wondered something. If the intent of your website was to raise awareness of fraudulent signatures instead of publicly shame people, whom for your standpoint are haters, why is the site “knowthyneigbor” instead of something analogous to a truthful and fair petition system?
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“Knowthyneighbor” in of itself does not have positive connotations to it. I can see that being the site for people who advertise members of the community who are in like the KKK or something.
We have committed to creating an “all open petition” site if openmass.com does not.
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KnowThyNeighbor was not missioned to only expose fraud. We were sort of dragged into that and have been the organization which reported and educated the public during the petition cycle back in 2005.
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If you go to our site and really read what we are all about you will see that we posted the names to do what everyone hear at BMG heralds themselves in doing–civic engagement. I cannot name a gay person who has not discovered a good friend, family member or other person well-known to him or her whose name ended up as a signer of the petition. KTN was created to empower the LGBT community and supporters of equality to have those conversations with the people who would take away their rights, the rights and protections of their families and the rights of future generations.
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Not only was KTN publicly sanctioned by the Secretary of the Commonwealth, but it was un-officially endorced by our Attorney General’s Office too. The Secretary’s Legal Advisor told me that it was “my job” as essentially the antithesis of VoteOnMarriage to creat KnowThyNeighbor.
Are they the guys who invoke the name Hitler for Mitt Romney? Mittler? yeah
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And aren’t they the guys who draw comparisons of Christians to the KKK and Nazi’s – oh yeah
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AND aren’t they the same folks who posted all the names and addresses of the petition signers in order to harass them? oh yeah
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Do not be fooled by these folks they take hate to a new level.
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Know thy Neighbor is a joke. Many in the gay community want nothing to do with them.
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http://www.innewswee…
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Love thy neighbor
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When it comes to calmer heads prevailing, the gay community should also beware of turning to Tom Lang and Aaron Toleos, co-directors of KnowThyNeighbor.org. Lang and Toleos are publishing an online list of names and addresses of everyone who signs the anti-gay marriage people’s initiative amendment petition – allegedly to help Massachusetts residents “know thy neighbor” better. What it really amounts to is intimidation of neighbor.
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Evan Wolfson, the popular leader of Freedom to Marry, often speaks of three types of Americans when it comes to gay marriage: Those who oppose gay marriage no matter what, those who support gay marriage no matter what, and the vast majority of rational, just people who are in the persuadable middle. His advice? Don’t bother with the first group; it’s a waste of time and resources. Rally the second group; they can be mobilized. And reach out to the third group; they will respond to personal stories which touch on the American principles of love, equality and fairness.
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Those who sign the anti-gay marriage amendment petition, by and large, belong to the first group, the intractable anti-gay minority. Launching any sort of attack on these people – and making a high profile display of these people’s signatures is an attack – is not only a waste of time and energy, but ultimately will backfire among those in the middle.
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Furthermore, the title of the organization, Know Thy Neighbor, bastardizes the golden rule: Love thy neighbor as thyself. By perverting this universal maxim to justify intimidation only leads to setbacks and bad press, as witnessed by the justifiably condemnatory editorial in the Boston Herald on Friday, Sept. 9.
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It’s time that these activists return to the spirit of the golden rule and drop the intimidating hate tactics that we as gay people have had to endure most of our lives. After all, it was intimidation that provoked a bunch of drag queens in New York City to fight back against police force at Stonewall in 1969; imagine what intimidation could motivate in virulently anti-gay people
what are you suggesting? your comment prompted me to actually use the KTN database. if you are indeed the Paul Jamieson listed as a signer, then i assume you categorize yourself as stated above, viz
then you ask us to
so you are saying that you are intractibly anti-gay and because your name was listed on KTN you feel intimidated and are now motivated to do…what?
you like to put words in peoples mouths don’t you
perhaps you would like to clarify your position.
KnowThyNeighbor.org, the organization that tracked and followed this fraudulent petition cycle from A to Z had this to say at the recent Judiciary Hearing about tightening up the initiative petition process. EVERY type of bait and swithch was used to ge the signatures up to their “170,000” signatures claimed. The goal here for VOM was not to “double” the amount required but to acquire the greatest number for their “groundswell of public sentiment” spin.
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KnowThyNeighbor produced the paid signature gatherer used by VOM to tell of how the bait and switch occured. However, KTN tracked the bait and switch long after the paid signature gatherers left this state AND Kris Mineau of the Mass Family Institute even admitted to the paid gatherers having left before Channel 22 Springfield interviewed people who fell as victims see video on KTN’s home page. http://knowthyneighb…
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So, Ms. Porcupine, the logical explanation is that VOM volunteers which include some GOP State Committee members were versed and trained in the bait and switch tactics.
…to be about the same as Democratic SC members involved in bait and switch on the Universal Health Care petition, which received far less scrutiny.
… is there any analyitical information for that estimate?
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If someone did an analysis and came to that conclusion I would like to see there data a reasoning.
On September 7, 2005, GOP Chairman Darrell Crate, at a meeting at his house of SC members together with NRC committee man, Ron Kaufman, announced that the State GOP would be working “with” VoteOnMarriage. Considering the fraud and forgery that was so widespread during this process, under the guidance of VOM, I would say that the GOP was at least “guilty by association.”
There are 80 members. Not even Darrell’s house could accomodate them.
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You have been informed by a participant in that meeting, I assume. Ask them if it was a regular meeting or if regular members were informed.
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Likewise – was the entire sttendance SC members? Ron Kaufman isn’t a SC member, for instance. Or was this just a meeting of like minded people, some of whome were SC members?
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I DEEPLY resent your insinuation that the Mass GOP is guilty of deliberate ballot fraud. It is simply not so, and your ‘guilt by association’ is a leaky sieve, indeed.
I am left to wonder why the Mass GOP didn’t stay as far away from this as possible. You may have noticed that moderate Republicans, until recently, had a knack for winning elections in this blue state. Social libertarian, lower taxes, fiscal respobsibility. Pretty good recipe over the years.
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I know that you are a Romney supporter, but surely you must know that by conspicuously throwing out the “social libertarian” ingredient, he made your pretty good recipe into poison.
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All the hoohah about Deval Patrick’s monumental electoral acheivement notwithswtanding, it was this poison that zapped Healy before she even started. I think that if the “parking lot stalker” was the actual Democratic candidate, he still would have won, so irritated with Mitt Dobson were we.
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It sure seems to me that Mitt’s presidential ambitions have crippled an already weak Massachusetts GOP. Why the Mass GOP chose to cooperate in this, rather than steering clear of this issue and cutting the guy loose, is beyond me.
WHAT makes Democrats think that the GOP is a monolith? ESPECIALLY the Mass GOP?
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I’ve kvetched before that Elizabet Dole, Ken Mehlman, et al, were able to arrive in Boston, give speeches, and leave without any media coverage whatsoever. But lock-step?
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I’m putting a link HERE to an old post of mine – about a meeting that took place within a couple of weeks of the evil secret conclave that Alexander has the secret emails about. SC members were at this too.
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In a party with Phil Travis, Tom Reilly and Jim Marzilli – why is it so hard for you to understand that there is no single set of opinions governing us all?
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BTW – last Sat. at the Seaport Issues Convention for the 6 New England States (whoops, no reporters there either!) Sen. John Sununu called for an end to arguing about divise social issues and a return to the issues that unite us – smaller, more efficient government, etc. So the social libertarian stock is on an upswing, at least here.
Maybe the Republicans aren’t a monolith in their minds, but they do have a penchant for presenting themselves as a in lock step to others. At least to the point of Thou Shalt Not Speak Ill of they Fellow Republicans, Even When They Are Undermining the American Way by Advocating For Civil Inequality and Bigotry. Thus spake Reagan.
but a lot of Democrats just call me racist.
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So maybe they aren’t speaking ill because they just don’t see things the same way as you.
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As far as the 11th commandment, the only other commandment I see broken more is the deal with taking the Lords name in vain–a crime I am especially going to be Hail Marying for the next time I go to confession.
Back in June of 2006 an initiative petition drive was undertaken in Michigan to eliminate affirmative action http://www.woodtv.co…. It seems that 125,000 African-American voters were also victims of fraud in that initiative petition. A Michigan court made an interesting assesment, stating “the initiative petition sponsors targeted all Michigan voters for deception without regard to race.”
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Interesting fact to note, the paid signature gathering company accused of the massive deception in Michigan was one of the companies that gathered signatures for the anti-same-sex marriage petition here in Massachusetts in 2005.
And weren’t you blown away by how not guilty you were?
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I have.
However, I can’t beleive that MassEquality stopped looking for fraud due to having “run out of money.” There was another reason for that–due to state laws, MEQ’s response was mostly a press opportunity to affect the electorate and leges.
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KnowThyNeighbor received a telephone call from the Attorney General’s office about a week and a half after the petition cycle began in 2005 and was told directly that there would be “no civil charges filed” based on bait and switch or lying by the paid sig gatherers or VOM. Why? Because the laws in the Commonwealth would not allow it. I was told this and ordered NOT to post it on my blog at KTN, because “the sponsors of the petition would know how easy it is for them to lie.” My response was “they already know.”
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This is why 1) the laws need to be strengthened areound initiative petitions 2) constitutional change needs to be handled much differently with signatures required or votes necessary in the legislature and 3) we MUST HAVE an open process with names of signatories posted and these signers need to be contacted and informed on which petitions their names appear.