Essex, MA, June 24, 2010 — KnowThyNeighbor.org, the national gay rights organization known for publishing online the names of close to a million anti-gay petition signers, celebrates a major victory in today’s Doe v. Reed by the US Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ruled 8-1 that petition signers do NOT have a constitutional right to keep their identities private.
“Signing a petition in public is a powerful and meaningful act. Signing your name in secret means nothing,” says Aaron Toleos, co-director of KnowThyNeighbor.org. “Today the Supreme Court affirmed the idea that a petition derives its legitimacy from the very fact that it is a public document.”
Toleos believes that when petitions deal with controversial issues, it is especially important that the information remain public. “It is the cases where the most important issues are at stake, like the rights of same-sex couples and their children to be equally protected by our laws, that the process should be held to the highest standard,” says Toleos. “Secreting the names of signers in these cases just makes it more likely that fraud will occur and that people will sign thoughtlessly. Hiding public information from the public is exactly what should not happen in these situations.”
KnowThyNeighbor.org has uncovered substantial amounts of petition fraud through its work. In Massachusetts, for example, thousands of signatures were identified as being either stolen through bait-and-switch techniques or forged outright, and the state launched both civil and criminal investigations.
The Doe v. Reed case resulted from the work of KnowThyNeighbor.org — along with local partner WhoSigned.org – to oppose a state referendum aimed at overturning a domestic partnership law in Washington. KnowThyNeighbor.org has previously partnered with churches and other local organizations to publish anti-gay petitioner information in Oregon, Arkansas, Florida, and Massachusetts.
KnowThyNeighbor.org was founded in 2005 by Tom Lang, a gay married Republican, and Aaron Toleos, a straight married Democrat, with the goal of encouraging civil, respectful, and meaningful dialogue between citizens on both sides of gay rights issues.
Aren’t petitions supposed to be a semi-random sample of the citizenry to demonstrate that a law or a candidate has enough popular support and enough legitimacy and organization to justify putting it on the ballot for the entire state? The argument that more is at stake in the petition than in the actual vote is totally bunk: the petition does nothing, it’s the vote that has an actual impact on things.
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p>If it’s important to root out fraud, isn’t even more important that the actual vote be public? And isn’t it virtually irrelevant whether there is fraud involved in getting on the ballot?
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p>There practical solutions to all of these concerns. We can not allow petition signers to be posted publicly online, but still have the city clerks verify their signature, and allow people to sign or check on their status online too. And we could do that with the actual votes too.
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p>There is a huge problem if people are afraid to sign petitions, no matter what the issue at stake is.
Personally, I don’t see how SCOTUS could have come to any conclusion other than the one they made. Issues and candidates live and die by petitions; just ask Grace Ross. I see this as more akin to promoting a cause in the same way that giving money is and we should know who is influencing the choices the rest of us make. I generally don’t sign issue petitions because I’m not a big fan of direct democracy, but it’s your choice to make an affirmative public statement supporting putting something on the ballot. If you’re not comfortable with that, don’t sign – it’s that simple.
Signing a petition to your government is more comparable to signing a letter. Anonymous signatures on a petition are as obnoxious as anonymous letters and as problematic.
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p>Representative government is far superior to governing by petition and therefore petitions should be carefully considered before being proffered. Several times a reasonable sounding petition was circulating and former Sen, Pam Resor was able to give a one line explanation that changed my understanding of the issue.
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p>PS Grace Ross difficulties were not due to the public nature of the signatures, but lack of focus on the petition process.
As I said, the petition doesn’t do anything, it only puts it on the ballot. A letter of petition is traditionally supposed to spur the ruler on to action just by itself, and it matters to the ruler who it is that thinks an action is called for. These aren’t letters of petition, they are representative samples to prove an issue has legitimate support (or at least money, which sucks).
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p>Are anonymous votes obnoxious and problematic too? Well, in that they can’t be verified, yes they are, but in that the public can’t know how people voted, they are pretty essential to our democracy and calling them obnoxious is undemocratic.
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p>And Grace Ross’s problems were definitely made more difficult by the public not wanting to sign any petitions for fear of being harassed. KTN has harmed democracy and made people fearful to get involved across the entire country, especially here in Massachusetts. They might as well be KKK.
Who the F would even be LOOKING at the names of the people who signed Grace Ross’s papers?
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p>Are you one of those crazy conspiracy nuts?? Not one person I ever talked to ever didn’t sign a nom paper thinking someone would harass them. And not one person I know would even bother to look up who in what towns signed – nevermind DO anything about it.
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p>Get a life, dude.
People are afraid to sign anything, they see a person with a clipboard and think uh-oh, better cross to the other side. Not all people of course, and some people might ask “what is it for?” and consider the likelihood of being harassed about it, but can’t you see how even that is a chilling effect? I would estimate that Grace Ross experienced a debilitating 20 knot metaphorical headwind in her signature drive due to KTN.
I doubt very highly that Know Thy Neighbor was on many people’s minds when approached with a Ross petition, which I for one DID sign despite my strong support for the Governor.
that people often sign petitions and nomination papers even if they don’t support it. So the argument that signers are expressing support is bunk too. Sometimes they just want to encourage participation and help the gatherer get home by dinner time, other times they want an issue on the ballot so they can vote against it.
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p>And I think lots more people than you think are now aware that petition signers are now put on line and that there is a chance of being harassed or called out for signing something. There were stories on the local news about it, and probably conversations at the barber shop and the dinner table. So people that used to sign petitions are afraid to now, and it effects all signature drives.
People could discover that they signed this when they didn’t intend to given the allegations of fraud in this particular signature drive. I doubt many people would think to call the Town Clerk and ask, “Can you double check for me that my name isn’t down for supporting putting X on the ballot?” If every town just routinely published a list of signatories for each petition Know Thy Neighbor’s efforts wouldn’t be needed anyway. In this case many of us feel that supporting the notion of civil rights by popular vote is just as aggregious as supporting the amendment on it’s merits. My State Rep.’s aide also told me that her office got calls from constituents saying it should be put on the ballot so the people can vote it down, but I don’t want to take that risk. I would not have touched this petition with a ten-foot pole even if my signature were secret. I don’t think people should be harassed, but I do think it is important that the process be transparent. BTW, are you aware that your party registration, whether or not you voted, and which ballot you used in a primary election are all public as well?
have always been harassed, and some have always been ‘afraid’ to be politically active. Only a minority of the population actually gets heavily involved with the political process. We’re used to the harassment. That just goes with the territory — far before KTN, and long after it. Sheesh.
Isn’t that a good thing? When you sign your name to something, more often than not, it’s binding. It’s a contract — even something as simple as a contract. People should, of course, think carefully before they do so. Thousands of people were defrocked because they just signed on the dotted line during the marriage equality debate. They thought they were signing a petition to allow liquor at the supermarket, but they were really signing a petition to ban marriage equality. Many, many, many good people were tricked. Hence, people should be wary of signing anything, as this stuff actually goes on all the time (because the signature collection companies train their employees to be as duplicitous as possible… and they’re paid by the signature).
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p>And I would estimate you’re 100% full of it. The vast, vast, vast majority of people don’t even remember that occurred, if they were savvy enough to know what occurred in the first place. It was covered on the local news, but only moderately so. The only people who have cared enough about KTN’s efforts thus far to try to stop them have been the bigots, because they don’t want to make their bigoted peeps have to be accountable for their actions. You see, most bigots actually know that they’re bigoted views are not socially acceptable and will not publicly air them out.
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p>Of course, in politics and government, when you sign on the dotted line, that’s public knowledge (necessarily so). It goes way above and beyond voting, and it serves a different purpose than voting. It shows that there’s enough supporters publicly willing to put their names on the line to support a candidate running for an office that they’re worthy to be in that race. If you remove the public component, not only do you risk corruption (this is why all things that happen publicly should be transparent… should be public in and of itself), but you enable the process to be perverted in such a way that signatures no longer mean the same thing. Signatures should be damn hard to collect; that’s the entire point.
Maybe that word does not mean what you think that word means. Are you suggesting that thousands of members of clergy were stripped of their ordained status because they signed on the dotted line?
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p>Evidence please.
I didn’t mean that word, and you’re right, it didn’t mean what I was trying to say. An edit button would be nice, but as we know, doesn’t exist. Mheh.
I’ve collected signatures many times over the years for many different causes and candidates, and I know for a fact that people are more weary of signing petitions now, ever since KTN started putting the names on line. They even say so sometimes, when they feel a need to explain.
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p>It’s not necessarily public knowledge when you sign on the dotted line. Court records are often sealed, student load records are often sealed, etc. And I’m not even saying these should be sealed, just not made available on line.
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p>I think you are wrong that the purpose of a petition is to show that enough people “are willing to put their names on the line to support a candidate”, I think we ask for people’s names simply to verify that they are real actual voters, and that they only are counted once. Not to tell the world that this person endorses the candidate or issue. They aren’t even making an endorsement when they sign, let alone making it for public knowledge.
WAS THERE?
is besides the point. It was public knowledge and KTN had the right to do it. Though KTN had its reasons — and those reasons exposed a fundamental and serious problem — they didn’t need to have any ‘needs’ to do it, just like the local paper doesn’t need a reason to post the local police reports every week, even if there are legitimate reasons and ‘needs’ behind that, too.
…between publicly available and advertising. As Ryan said, KTN had its own reasons for making sure people knew. By your logic nobody would ever need to advertise a product or service because people would just find what they need on their own, not that I’d complain too loudly if there were fewer ads.
But that doesn’t justify banning advertising.
(I’ve collected plenty of sigs, too, and no one’s ever made a KTN-like complaint), but I just want to comment on this statement:
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p>GOOD. That is a GOOD THING. People SHOULD BE WARY of what they SIGN THEIR NAME TO. There has been all kinds of fraud concerning signature collecting, like what we saw by MFI’s attempts to put marriage equality on the ballot. If people learned their lesson, that they should read fully what they sign before they sign it, this is a wonderful thing for the signature collection process and democracy itself.
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p>When you sign for ballot drives it is and always has been, but nice attempts for the straw man.
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p>ROFL.
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p>I think the proper technical term for that is not “straw man,” it’s “lie.”
his mentioning of other things where, when you sign, it’s not necessarily public knowledge. He was attempting to say that because they weren’t public knowledge, signing a ballot initiative wasn’t/shouldn’t be, either.
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p>From wiki:
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p>I think straw man applies, but you’re right, it’s dishonest, too. Though, the same thing could be said for most straw men arguments.
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p>Perhaps I should have quoted his sentences which I thought were a straw man before I wrote that criticism to make it clearer.
The fact is not everything you sign, even legal or civil documents, are necessarily accessible to the public. Try looking up Obama’s student loan records, for example. Arrest records and divorce proceedings are public documents but not public knowledge.
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p>Public records that are open to the public do not and should not necessarily become “public knowledge”, which refers usually to something that is well known by most of the public.
They are public knowledge to those who red court reports, the ‘Sailor and Soldier’ foreclosure ads, and the published probate reports.
…not everything is public record, but all KTN was doing was making already public information more easily accessible.
that’s the straw man Ryepower was talking about, and yes, it’s dishonest. Knowledge that is open to the public is subject to dissemination by any portion of that public, for any purpose and by any means it sees fit. If that makes it common knowledge, so be it.
Are available to the general public online. The state may, but doesn’t have to, allow people access to petitions.
Certain records held by government are not made publicly available, usually because there is a good reason. Someone may be arrested but not charged or convicted, and the arrest record is potentially misleadingly defamatory. Bankruptcy courts redact people’s social security numbers, as does the probate court, to protect against fraud.
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p>The entire point of the USSC decision is that there is no good reason to suppress a petition of this type. To repeat: No good reason.
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p>I was, and am, quite critical of KTN’s decision to use these records as they did. But that doesn’t mean that they didn’t have every right to do it.
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p>At bottom, if you are considering signing your name to a petition that advocates a cause with which you would be embarrassed to be associated, then don’t sign it.
I agree with Thomas’s opinion that there is a good reason to suppress it. I think the majority was composed of three or four who thought there was no good reason, and four or five who left it up to the state to decide if they thought there was. Thomas was the only one to say that strict scrutiny of the state’s policy was called for here.
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p>I wish someone would appreciate my point about Thomas, who was born in a Georgia town founded by Freedmen and is acutely aware of the problem of voter intimidation.
we’d be knee-deep in manure. Thomas’s opinion is unlikely to persuade anyone here, regardless of his personal history. Better find another star to wish upon.
and indicates your own narcissism or whatever personality disorder you have that causes you to assume that minorities are embarrassed about it. It’s an element of facism to have no tolerance for minority positions and want everyone to get in line.
… for you there exists no position for which one should be embarrassed. Those guys at NAMBLA have no reason to be ashamed in your book.
Was their position shameful? It is you who thinks that there exists no position that might be subject to intimidation and harassment which is also not embarrassing and shameful, and therefore deserving of harassment. You think that all people who would intimidate and harass are members in good standing of the national common identity, and all signers of petitions must be shameful minorities who have no place in society.
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p>Between your advocacy of shame, your belief in the marginalization and assimilation of minority cultures into a common culture, and mike_cote saying that he’d fight to the death for ‘open government’, I think that we have many of the key elements of fascism well established in this very thread.
… on the civil rights people, the NAMBLA position is a necessary consequence of your premises. When you put up an absolute precept, the way to test it is to see if it generates an unacceptable outcome. Your absolute precept that people shouldn’t ever be exposed to embarrassment for their citizen actions necessarily absolves NAMBLA of embarrassment. For most thinkers, when your precepts lead to unacceptable outcomes, that’s when you reexamine them.
First of all, people circulating such a petition probably wouldn’t get enough signatures even if the signers could be secure their families and friends wouldn’t find out. Second, even if they did get it on the ballot, surely it’d be voted down. Third, if it DID get a majority of votes, then maybe it was a good thing they weren’t thwarted during the petition signing. It also has to go through two ConCons to get to the ballot, providing another check against NAMBLA making child molesting legal, or whatever the analogy is.
… is your absolute position that shame has no place in civic life. An absolute position that marginalization is never a civic good. This is simply wrong. My position isn’t absolute and most people who are familiar with my writings here on the blog and that know me personally are no doubt chuckling at the notion that I embody any ‘key elements of fascism’. Laughable.
of what fascism means to Cute.
Their position wasn’t shameful, and they didn’t gripe about having people know their opinions. You seem to be arguing backwards now. We think that all have the right to express or not express their opinions as they see fit. BMGers are probably just about the last people who believe in marginalization of minorities. Open government if anything is an antedote to fascism.
Right, they weren’t embarrassed and their position wasn’t shameful, but yet they were intimidated and harassed. The secret ballot was a major tool in advancing their rights and their safety while doing it. Without the introduction of the secret ballot, we’d just be beginning to emerge from Jim Crow.
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p>I think that many many people didn’t help the civil rights movement out of fear of intimidation, and even though many people bravely stood in the face of intimidation, many didn’t bother, and the more secure they could be that they wouldn’t be found out and find a burning cross on their lawn, the more they would have supported them.
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p>The same goes for the KKK of course, many of them were open about it, but most wore hoods to mask their identity. The point is that being able to remain anonymous increases participation. Yes, often bad people hide behind anonymity, but often good people need to hide from bad people, like the first voters who used the secret ballot to start the civil rights movement.
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p>There are protections against bad people using the anonymity of petitions and ballots, namely the concon and the vote itself, as well as the ability to shame and argue against them as a group. So it is not necessary to take away the protections of good people who need the anonymity in order to even get to the concon and the vote.
the bigots who signed the anti-marriage amendments were not “minorities.” They were the ones persecuting the minorities. This ‘it’s discrimination to ban us from discriminating against you’ BS is just that. You are acting unhinged.
Things are getting repetitive, but your belief that it is a GOOD THING that people are wary to sign petitions out of fear of harassment by opponents is reprehensible.
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p>People certainly should be aware of what they are signing, so as to not sign things they do not want to sign, but that’s not the same as being wary because of fear of retribution.
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p>I said it was a good thing that people were wary, not that it was a good thing they were wary due to harassment. That’s the first straw man in that sentence. You’ll note I’ve completely rejected the notion that there’s any actual harassment that’s happened today due to KTN’s efforts. That’s patently absurd. You may just be unhappy that people are often wary of signing things and conflate that with KTN’s efforts, but that’s neither harassment nor KTN’s fault. Even if people are “wary” because of what happened during the marriage amendment signature collection, it’s not because of what KTN did — it’s because the companies MFI hired to do the collecting defrauded those who were tricked into signing them.
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p>The second straw man is the fact that you’re now claiming a whole different kind of problem and form of harassment — campaign opponents. KTN never harassed signature collectors and they only posted signatures online well after they were signed: there was no harassment of signature collectors by KTN or organizations that have since used the same tactics.
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p>You’re now actually complaining about campaigns harassing the signature collectors of their opponents, which is a whole different beast. While it’s true that there’s been some harassment of campaigns by the campaigns of opponents, it’s unusual for it to happen to signature collectors, because that kind of intimidation would a) be illegal and b) be ineffective. The real form of intimidation comes by having local big whigs call up the opponent campaign and telling them to drop it, which doesn’t happen at the volunteer level. Even that type of intimidation is weak and ineffective, in the end. And none of it is actually related to your actual point — that KTN-styled tactics are ebil. So, again, stop conflating the two. There has been no signature-collecting intimidation in this state which has resulted in a candidate or issue not making the ballot in recent history, period. Give up, dude.
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p>Whether you’re purposefully trying to conflate posting signatures online with on-the-ground intimidation of signature collectors, or you, yourself are just confused (as bigots often are), you should really just stop. You haven’t done yourself a single favor on this entire thread. There was no intimidation or surpression of Team Homophobia in Massachusetts when you guys tried to strip my human rights. Heck, even as this state procedurally killed the health care constitutional amendment, the legislature gave your hateful and hurtful amendment a full and fair vote… and it failed, despite the paltry 25% threshold of votes your side needed to push it through to the ballot. You have no reason at all to complain, so stop whining.
The collectors don’t mind being harassed, that’s kind of fun. I’m talking about the fear of would-be signers that they’ll be harassed months or years later.
First of all, again, I have no sympathy for those who have faced ridicule for supporting bigoted policies on ballot initiatives. You get what you deserve and, as I’ve said, free speech does not mean freedom from repercussions.
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p>When you put your name down publicly, you have to realize that there’s the risk for future “solicitation,” not all of it being good or indifferent. This actually happens with voting, too. Every time you vote in an election (or not), particularly a primary, you’re giving campaigns information about yourself that will determine whether you’re targeted or not.
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p>Of course, in life, pretty much any actions we take have that kind of long-term effect, from the products we buy to the type of work we take to where we choose to live. You’re far more likely to be “harassed” by mail and phone when signing up for a credit card than you are by signing your name on a ballot initiative. We as human beings should recognize the fact that all of our actions have consequences and only take actions in which we are prepared to deal with the consequences.
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p>If bigoted citizens decided that they don’t want to deal with the grief they got last time, when they signed their name to the bigoted amendment, then that means their bigotry just isn’t as important to them as being left alone. Again, I have no sympathy.
The court ruled correctly that its speech. Compare it to a political advertisement. Would you want political attack ads by anonymous sources?
Political speech is not the same as voting
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p>The brave patriots who signed our Declaration of Independence were truly risking their lives, as opposed to the bigots who are risking embarrassment. Would history have run the same course if the identity of signers of the Declaration were kept private?
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p>I can speak with some authority on the Grace Ross signature gathering. There was no noticeable difference of collecting signatures from any other campaign. The problem was prioritizing other activities over campaigning. You can’t collect signatures if your campaign is busy editing your book – even if the signatures were secret!
There are times when you want to sign your name and publicly take a stand, and times when you want to support something without fear for your safety. Keeping petition signers off line and protecting them from retribution and harassment would in no way prevent people from speaking out publicly if they choose to.
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p>I wouldn’t mind if political ads came from an anonymous source, I want to evaluate arguments on their merits, and knowing who is making the argument only prejudices me.
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p>There were thousands of unknown compatriots who didn’t sign the Declaration, but who through their grumblings gave the signers of the Declaration the courage to sign their names. The anonymous Common Sense pamphlet was perhaps more influential in history, six months prior.
…to counteract the biases of the source. If a source has a direct stake in the outcome of a question I want to know that. There could be an ad about global warming that sounds pretty persuasive that it’s not a big deal, but then you find out the oil industry paid for and, well, I know how much credibility to give that argument.
that we as consumers of information are exposed to tremendous amounts, and since we have neither the resources nor the expertise to measure the validity of each claim, we instead use the reputation of the source. To do that, we need to know the source.
…and in a perfect world we could all make the judgement on the merits. I took two semesters of Logic in college and we were taught the relying on the reputation of the source is a “logical fallacy”. Back in the real world I think you are exactly correct.
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p>Seriously, dude, that’s just sounding crazy. No one I’ve known has ever felt they needed to “fear for” their “safety” because of signature collecting or door knocking or anything of the like, at least since the Southern Freedom Movement. If you want fear, it comes from Team Bigotry and always has.
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p>In the normal world where bigoted people aren’t trying to keep someone down, there’s little cause for someone to be afraid for their safety because of political activity. I’ve met some women who didn’t want to door knock alone, solely because they were afraid of being in strange neighborhoods with potentially strange people, but that’s no different than the fear they would have had walking down strange allies alone at night.
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p>Collecting signatures, on the other hand, is safe as safe can be — even if alone — as it’s done in public places, usually in broad daylight with hundreds of people going to and fro over the course of an hour. If you want to suggest there should be reason to have a great fear for one’s safety while doing this here in Massachusetts in open, public places — and that it’s related to KTN — you need to go out and show me not only individual cases of which someone has been physically harmed while signature collecting in this state, but that there’s been a huge, statistically significant margin of it, with people doing the harming raising the specter of KTN whilst they were committing the crime. Until then, you need to back that crazy talk way the hell up.
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p>You are in an absurdly small minority there, chief. I’m beginning to think you work for NOM. Yikes.
If MassResistance published the names and addresses of all the supporters of Carl Sciortino on their website, and encouraged their neighbors to visit them and have a conversation with them about why what they did was wrong, wouldn’t you think they were out of line? Would you want your parents or children looking up all your records and arguing with you or disowning you?
MassResistance has been publishing people’s photos, names, and numbers in “calls to action” for years. Even unlisted ones.
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p>The issue remains: should public information be publicly available?
Not sure what you are referring to, but I think it’s appropriate to publish photos of public parades, and to report who the people involved in the movement are. I don’t think it’s right to publish phone numbers, addresses, or anything else that results in people being harassed at home.
It’s OK for someone to publish my name and picture because I was in a parade, but publishing information contained in a PUBLIC PETITION is not OK?
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p>Interesting.
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p>Just one example: MassResistance published the name, address, email and home phone number for the Lexington Superintendent of schools during their manufactured “David Parker” incident.
that doesn’t interfere with freedom of association.
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p>Maybe there should be a law against posting photos from parades on line. Or people’s addresses and phone numbers with the intention of inciting harassment.
What signing a petition has to do with freedom of association?
I was just looking for some words to finish my sentence with.
If you want a more careful choice of words about the rights being curtailed by putting petition signers names and addresses online, read Justice Thomas’s dissent.
When only one person dissents, and it’s one of the extremist of the fringe righties, who’s also known for being the intellectual weak link of the court, I’m not very interested in that.
My understanding is that the rest of the court took various positions, but all were based on a strict letter of the law approach, which noted that indeed there is no Constitutional right to anonymous anything. Even the secret ballot is not in the Constitution, and so states can allow petition signers to be posted on line if they want to. Thomas didn’t disagree wtih that.
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p>Thomas took an activist approach to the issue and applied strict scrutiny of the state’s policies, finding that a more narrowly tailored solution would serve the state’s purposes without the chilling effect on political activity, activity which the state desires, and noted that states don’t have to put names on line, so he essentially said “WTF, Washington? Fix this problem.”
Since you supposedly did read Thomas’s dissent, why didn’t you use some of his words, instead of “looking for” some.
you’re a member of MassResistance. This is getting hilarious.
I’d laugh.
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p>Seriously. It would be comedy gold. Also, it would have no bearing on Sciortino’s electoral career. Hell, he’s proven he doesn’t even have to be on the primary ballot to win in his district. His people love him and are proud to openly and enthusiastically support him… because he does the things they want of him.
That was just an example, but you’re right, the shoe won’t fit on the other foot, because only one side is so young and militant and enthusiastically active, while the other side is old and fearful and much more likely to be silenced or cowed into apathy. It’s not worth it for them to put their peace and quiet and relationships with neighbors and family on the line just to preserve marriage, it’s not like they get anything out of it.
So, to make the shoe fit better, imagine if they were young and active and militant and motivated, and you were meek and old and easily spooked into submission, and had nothing to gain from signing a nomination sheet for Carl (not that he even needs no stinking signatures). Would you be upset that they were harassing you then?
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p>You mean the bigoted side? If they don’t want to put their “peace and quiet” on the line because they’re afraid of getting angry response from signing hateful ballot questions… good.
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p>FINALLY we’re getting somewhere! So you are a bigot that supports a hateful attempt to strip marriage equality away from people. That you people, who want to take away my rights as a gay person, feel uncomfortable doesn’t bother me one bit. You should feel uncomfortable for trying to “preserve” bigoted policies. I’m glad that people would harass you when doing so — maybe you should take it as a sign that your anti-equality marriage amendment is hateful and bigoted?
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p>We’ve already established that no one gets harassed more than ordinary for going out there and asking for signatures. It’s tough work and most people don’t want to sign, but it’s always been that way. Now, if you want to go pushing bigoted ballot questions… of course you’re going to get harassed more than usual. They’re bigoted and most people don’t like that. Your free speech, as I’ve said, doesn’t entitle you to making everyone else be nice to your cause. If you try to strip people’s rights, prepare to be harassed by others employing their own free speech. This, by the way, has nothing to do with KTN.
You’re incapable of the mental exercise of reversing the situation. Maybe a new thought experiment will fire your remaining neuron: back when people started to fight for civil rights for gays and other minorities, do you think the movement was slowed down by fears they’d be harassed and maybe fired from their jobs if their boss or family found out? Yes, it was. Intimidation, threatening activists, threatening signers and supporters, ruled the land for a hundred years after the Civil War. It wasn’t worth it for people to put themselves in the line of fire, so they didn’t, and millions of people were oppressed. You are defending KKK tactics, the tactics of violent fascist bigots.
try to talk about how certainly minorities just should have fought for equality differently, gosh darn it, as if they actually supported that equality to begin with. This is right up there with the Egg and Sperm guy. Please, for heaven’s sake, take your concern trolling elsewhere; it doesn’t fly in a reality-based community.
… start getting beat up / shot / hung, then you can start a comparison with the civil rights movement. Apples and oranges.
His sheets were stolen from his desk, he had to run a sticker campaign.
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p>And no, I don’t think MR or anyone should post any candidate’s signature sheets on line and encourage people to go confront those people about their bigotry or evilness or stupidity. It should be understood that candidates and ballot questions have a few supporters out there, as well as more than few people who just support the political process and sign everything to have a robust debate.
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p>What do you think about the secret ballot?
about my civil rights as a human being, you’re damn right I’ll get up in your face.
In effect, the only way MR could publish those names would be if they were in possession of stolen property – are you trying to tell the world something here?
tomorrow at 3, and I’ll tell you their names.
Publish away!
That is an excellent distinction between signing a public petition, and voting: one is a public act, and the other is not.
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p>There is a reason that people remember the names of the signers of the Declaration of Independence ten score and four years hence: because those gentlemen took a risk to support what we now perceive to be a noble cause. If a public petition advocates something that might embarrass you, that is a good reason to pass on it.
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p>So I guess I’m having trouble seeing your point.
… is based on the ability to verify and therefore signatories need to be public. The integrity of the election is based on the process – everyone who voted goes through the verification process and the vote itself has a process. Everything is declared public except who you voted for (including your party). The integrity of the vote would be further bolstered with paper verification given to the voter with a copy kept by the state so that paper recounts could be based on paper records that have been verified by the individual voters at the time of voting.
sortakinda. Unless the receipt is encrypted, a “proof of whom I voted for slip” actually undermines elections because it also offers proof to someone else that you voted for the candidate in exchange for money/promotion/not-getting-smacked. Without the receipt, there can be no inappropriate “influence” on a person’s vote.
… have a rule that says the receipt copies need to be destroyed & can’t leave the voting area – or you could just have the one copy that you see, but is kept for paper verification by the state. The ability for the voter to verify their vote and for the state to keep a hard copy that agrees with your verification is what is important here.
It’s my understanding that that’s generally how it’s done (when it’s done). The receipt prints and then shows up under glass in the machine for you to check, but you don’t get it in your hand at any point in the process.
is not the best way to verify signatories. Otherwise every petition up until KTN came along had no integrity, because they never did that before. There never used to be any attempt by city clerks to contact the signer, but there could be if that is truly the issue. All the clerks used to do was verify that the signature matched the signature of a voter at that address. And that’s the extent of how public it was, it was public to the city hall clerk. They never published lists of signers, though they certainly could have.
It’s not “the best” way? Saying something like that assumes you know what the best way is. So, please, enlighten us.
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p>Meanwhile, I can be safe in the comfort that KTN exposed literally over a thousand signatures of people who had been listed as signers of that petition even though they either didn’t sign it or never intended to (and were, indeed, hoodwinked into doing so). KTN did that, not the government, not any political watch dog groups that don’t public signatures, not anything of the like. If there was another, “best” way, why didn’t it work there, too?
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p>
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p>If you don’t think signatures were checked before KTN, I’ve got a bridge to sell you. It may have never been done on such a massive scale, all available online before, but I assure you that this kind of information has long been used before.
would be for city clerks to contact each signer to verify that they meant to sign.
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p>I think if there was fraud or hoodwinking going on, it was because of the practice of paid signature gatherers collecting signatures on more than one petition at a time. The best way to stop that would be to prohibit paid gathering, or at least prohibit them from carrying more than one petition at a time, and enforcing the existing laws about fraud and misrepresentation and forgery with undercover cops and sting operations.
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p>Many of that thousand probably DID sign, perhaps just because they sign petitions without caring what they are, but then after being harassed they decided to claim fraud. This sort of intimidation and recanting is not rare, it was used all the freaking time by the KKK and Spanish Inquisition, and children all over the world learn to use “but I didn’t mean to” as a way back into good graces of their family and friends.
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p>Read Thomas’s dissent, he practically designed the website and database that would be narrowly tailored to serve the intended purpose without infringing freedom of speech and association.
So, a) No link. Thought so. The BS is oozing, dude.
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p>B) Do you realize how much work it would be for city clerks to contact each person who signed a petition for candidates or ballot questions? Given that a person can call about 20 people in an hour, though only 1 in 4 people are likely to actually be home at any given time, it would take about four hours of time over a period of a days just to contact that list of twenty. The Governor’s candidacy requires 10,000 signatures alone across the state, never mind the dozens of other offices and ballot question petitions city clerks would be faced with. It takes a long time just for city clerks to go through the lists as it is, without contacting people. So would you also propose we double or triple the number of clerks across the state to account for this gigantic task you’d have them set upon — as well as raise taxes in the tens of millions to cover that expense?
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p>
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p>Wait a minute… the Spanish Inquisition harassed and intimidated signature gatherers? Which elections and ballot questions were these signature gatherers participating in during the period in which the royalty ruled over Spain?
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p>Your arguments are not sane. Enjoy your next charter meeting at MassResistance Headquarters — are you responsible for bringing the cookies?
That would be the clerks confirming each signer actually meant to sign it and knew what they were doing. Second best would be a combination of verifying some percent of them, and also creating a system to let people check their own names on line to see if they are on it, using a random voter ID they get from city hall. City Halls or the SoS could also store an email address for all voters, or all residents, and send an email to people informing them their signature (or vote) was recorded.
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p>And, the Spanish Inquisition caused people to recant and claim that they never said what they are accused of having said. That’s probably the same thing going on with a significant number of the people who claim they were victims of fraud.
…so should everyone else. Back to your attempted comparison to the vote itself, even the Clerk doesn’t know for whom you voted.
that doesn’t make it public. They process arrest reports and taxes, but don’t necessarily release them in digitized form.
Just because the Clerks don’t bend over backward to make them accessible, doesn’t mean they were someone else can’t do it. Remember the original question was not whether this information is or should be public record. They ARE public record – that’s the law. Therefore there should be no problem with an organization taking the extra step to make them, well, PUBLIC.
Even Roberts, Alito, and Scalia sided with us!
Our digital paper, Cape Cod Today, has a LOCAL police blotter complete with mug shots from the local departments (in case the names and addresses aren’t revealining enough).
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p>Link HERE
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p>The Departments like Yarmouth and Truro also do periodic releases of offenses and mug shots regardless of seriousness like HERE
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p>
First of all, there is a public interest in there being a chilling effect on getting arrested that is absent regarding petitions and signature gathering. Second, the state can allow some records to be online, but not allow other records. This is all explained in Thomas’s dissent.
Public interest in a chilling effect against arrest is not the reason that is publicized; it is because the police are conducting public business.
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p>I don’t understand why you are so obsessed with the online aspect. It’s just another tool and a messanger that shouldn’t be shot.
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p>Finally, I for one don’t put nearly as much credence in your pet “chilling effect” theory regarding petitions as you do. You make it sound like ever since KTN did what it did there’s been a huge drop in signature gathering, which I don’t think there is any evidence for.
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p>The Spanish Inquisition
n/t
There need not be a reason to make a public petition a public record. It matters not that that making the public petition a public record is even a means of reducing fraud, let alone the best way to eliminate fraud.
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p>The relevant inquiry is whether there is a good reason to suppress these particular public records. The answer to that inquiry is that there is no good reason, which is why it has never been done, before the internet or after.
This is not a gender issue but a public policy one, and the court ruled correctly. Petition papers are public documents and always have been.
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p>Nomination papers, tax petitions, policy petitions – all are public record. I understand this is news to many people, given that we stopped teaching civics a while ago, but when you sign such a document you are affirming that you are legally entitled to vote on this matter and you endorse its progress to the ballot.
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p>As I’ve said elsewhere, I’d like to see MORE posting on line of petitions and election papers. Question One supporters, candidate backers – the SoS SHOULD routinely post these public records. For example, last December I went to several town halls and got the voter list for those who pulled Republican ballots in the Senate primary. My gut told me that anyone who went out to vote in December to make sure that Scott Brown beat Jack Robinson was PROBABLY pretty committed – and I’ve gotten lots of good campaign workers from those lists, including more than a few (former) unenrolleds.
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p>Why is a VOTE different? Because that is your final decision and a private one. But petition and voting records are part of the documented public process and there is no privacy there.
Read Justice Thomas’s dissenting opinion. I think the majority was simply noting that the records are indeed public records, the state can release public records, and people can post them, so they sided with the state on a thoughtless letter of the law decision. But Thomas was being rather activist in applying strict scrutiny and saying that the state should come up with a narrowly tailored solution to the problems of verification and fraud that doesn’t squelch the democratic freedoms of association or whatever he said, even more eloquently than me. He even designed the website for them. (I thought I must be Clarence Thomas in real life when I read the opinion, but then I remembered I’m Bob Dylan Jr).
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p>Lots of people don’t vote or register to vote because they don’t want to be bothered by bothersome people.
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p>A vote is only your final decision if you die in the polling booth. The difference between votes and petitions is that votes change government or law, while petitions just put something on the ballot to be voted on.
And I did read the remarks. But the issue was never fraud, although KTN chose to use it for that purpose. The issue was – can public records be made avilable to the public?
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p>To those who don’t register/vote because they don’t want to be ‘bothered’, I can only say – the world is run by the people who show up. I hope they enjoy what I’m doing for them….
I’m just amazed Thomas voted opposite Scalia! I think a pig just flew by my window…
But Scalia is never activist, out of principle, but I think Thomas is more willing to be activist when it calls for it, perhaps that’s his black experience informing his judgment.
And make Congressional and state legislative voting records absolutely secret.
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p>Maybe government officials are too afraid to solve our problems because they’re afraid of harassment. If they could just govern anonymously, it would all be ok.
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p>If your neighbors are mean to you because you’re a bigot, tough cookies. You have a right to be protected from government harassment, not to have your good name protected when you do bad things. If you want to participate in the political process, people have a right to know you’re doing it. If you want to keep your bigotry secret, you have every right to. But you don’t have a right to pollute the political process at the same time.
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p>Unlike voting, there is no way to make public the fact that someone signed a petition without revealing what it was for. If you have a problem with that, please don’t sign petitions. The political process is better off without you.
But it seems that bigots are most afraid of publicly admitting their bigotry. It’s why they hide behind sheets and/or lawsuits like these.
n/t
Some people will sign just because they want to help everyone/everything get on the ballot. And those people should have no problem explaining that to their neighbors. The only ones who have reason to hide are the bigots.
it’s being harassed and forced to explain, resulting in people being reluctant to sign petitions.
In this country we have free speech, but that does not free people from the repercussions of their speech. If you want to be a bigot and support bigoted causes, I have a right to tell you to F off. I even have the right to go to my neighbor and ask them why the hell they signed that bigoted hate amendment that would have stripped my rights to be married to the person I love. Your freedom of speech prevents you from being arrested or punished by the government for your speech, it does not protect you from people who would rise up and vociferously speak out against your free speech.
Are you back on the Spanish Inquisition thing? If I sign a petition, how is anyone going to force me to explain doing so?
or at the supermarket. Most people aren’t as willing as me to patiently explain things to seething morons.
I’m sorry, but you’re just being ridiculous at this point. Democracy isn’t free, it isn’t a no-effort system where you free-ride om other people’s work. If you want to influence the process, if you want to effect the direction of society, you should probably be prepared to do more than spell your name on a clipboard.
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p>An opinion that can’t be defended is not worth having or sharing.
They don’t drop out because their opinion isn’t defensible, but because it’s not fun having immature psycho fascists yell at you and call you names, especially if they are your children or neighbors. It’s not worth it, because there is nothing in it for the signer. All they get is harassed. Few people care that much about any issue to put themselves in the line of fire.
1- If they’re opinion is defensible, why bother to defend it?
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p>2- What makes you say that I’m a fascist? Defending the rights of homosexuals is as far from fascism as you can get.
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p>3- The fact that you’re trying to claim the mantle of persecution in the name of bigotry clarifies just how away from reality you exist. Kindly stop wasting everyone’s time with your paranoid mumblings. If you want to justify your anti-equality vendetta, go ahead. If you want to pretend that opposing equality makes you persecuting, I’d love to see you explain that one.
like the KKK, who no doubt opposed the secret ballot in the election of 1892, and felt they had a right to know how everyone voted.
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p>This branch of this this comment thread is referring to petitions generally, and the point is, even if someone could easily defend their support of a candidate or ballot question, they might choose not to subject themselves to the abuse they’d receive for doing so.
Don’t use the word “fascist” unless you know what it means. “Fascist” is not a synonym for “bad person”. Kinda like terrorist.
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p>If somebody doesn’t want to defend their support, there’s an easy option — don’t sign the petition. You don’t get to publicly declare your support for something — the act of signing a petition — then cower from having to publicly explain what you publicly declared.
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p>If people want to privately vote their skin color, their religion, or their orientation, they can I suppose. However, if they want to publicly join a public effort to publicly promote a position, it’s hypocritical to demand privacy in doing so. There’s a reason why we use petitions in a different role than voting — there needs to be some people willing to back up what they say. Cowards who won’t because of boogeymen don’t have to sign the petition. Grown-ups realize they don’t get to have it both ways.
it means use of intimidation and violence to keep people in line. I wasn’t using it as a synonym for bad people. If either side of any question used harassment and intimidation to keep people from participating in the political process or expressing their opinion, it’d be fascist behavior.
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p>Right, the only option is to not sign the petition. That’s not good! That’s the whole point of intimidation, that’s why the KKK rode around on horses with burning crosses. If you don’t want a burning cross in your yard, don’t sign the petition. Sure, it was cowardly for people not to oppose the KKK anyway, they should have been brave, and wound up hanging from a tree. Such cowards!
I’m glad we are agreed that you use an explosive word such as “fascist” and haven’t the slightest idea what the word means. Most people would stop using a word if they were clueless in its deployment, but not you.
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p>I can’t wait to hear all the incidents of violence that have occurred because someone signed a petition in recent Massachusetts history. Either that, or you’re just pulling all this out of your a-s.
the Fascist Party doesn’t exist anymore, now the word is used to describe intimidation tactics in politics, involving threats and retributions and fear to silence people. Welcome to the present. With this free information, you can now read with better understanding instead of confusion. You’re welcome.
You don’t get to snidely redefine a word just because you can’t understand the original meaning. But like any conservative, that won’t keep you from trying. Patriotism, terrorist, fascism, tradition…you keep failing, but you keep trying. That’s why your handle is so precociously ironic.
good for you. Please let us know when we’ve finally achieved acceptable fascism, professor.
Fascism is a radical and authoritarian nationalist political ideology.[1][2][3][4] Fascists seek to organize a nation on corporatist perspectives, values, and systems such as the political system and the economy.[5][6] Fascism was originally founded by Italian national syndicalists in World War I who combined left-wing and right-wing political views, but gravitated to the political right in the early 1920s.[7][8] Scholars generally consider fascism to be on the far right of the conventional left-right political spectrum.[9][10][11][12][13][14] Fascists believe that a nation is an organic community that requires strong leadership, singular collective identity, and the will and ability to commit violence and wage war in order to keep the nation strong.[15] They claim that culture is created by collective national society and its state, that cultural ideas are what give individuals identity, and thus rejects individualism.[15] In viewing the nation as an integrated collective community, they see pluralism as a dysfunctional aspect of society, and justify a totalitarian state as a means to represent the nation in its entirety.[16][17] They advocate the creation of a single-party state.[18] Fascists reject and resist autonomy of cultural or ethnic groups who are not considered part of the fascists’ nation and who refuse to assimilate or are unable to be assimilated.[19] They consider attempts to create such autonomy as an affront and threat to the nation.[19] Fascist governments forbid and suppress openness and opposition to the fascist state and the fascist movement.[20] They identify violence and war as actions that create national regeneration, spirit and vitality.[21].
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p>(You’ll have to go to the article to follow all the links and citations.)
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p>So, um, yeah. Nothing to do with intimidation tactics, threats, or retribution in politics. Instead, it rather sounds to me like a Dick Cheney wet dream…
A petition is public document, as people on this thread explained to you ad nauseum. To even invoke the KKK example on this thread shows a grave misunderstanding of history.
It just happens to be kept secret, to allow people to vote freely. It doesn’t have to be, states could and did use public ballots, but the KKK used them to intimidate voters.
Embarassing people is the same as killing them?
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p>If that’s the case, you’d best hope you never catch me with my zipper down or something stuck in my teeth, because then I’d have every right to kill you.
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p>Or, you can stop trying to equate supermarket conversations to concentration camps. I just don’t get how you fail to see the fundamental difference.
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p>And as for civil rights activists… they were persecuted. If they put up with lynchings to defend their beliefs and you can’t even take your neighbor’s dirty looks, maybe that says something about the value of your beliefs.
“…it’s not fun having immature psycho fascists yell at you and call you names, especially if they are your children or neighbors…”
of someone who is being yelled at by their psycho fascist children and neighbors.
And are you “patient” or do you just have a profound ego problem that doesn’t let you let go of an argument even though you have convinced absolutely no one of your position?
They can ask if they want. Unless they actually use force, I am not compelled to answer, and I probably won’t.
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p>Please show your work; where have petition-signers been compelled by force to explain their signing?
Just knowing that a neighbor or family member or coworker might discover that you signed something that they are offended by is enough to keep people from signing, or using their real names in comments on blogs. There doesn’t have to be any force or confrontations for people to avoid putting themselves out on the firing line like that. That’s the chilling effect, and it’s bad for democracy.
If I am contemplating doing something that my neighbor, family member, or co-worker would be offended by, then I would be smart to take that into consideration. If my doing the thing is a public act, such as signing a petition, I have no right to expect that those people will not find out I did it. That I may be affected by their being offended is the risk I take. If that risk is unacceptable, I don’t do it.
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p>Holding people accountable for their support of ideas is not bad for Democracy.
that’s the problem. It is bad for democracy for people to fear reprisals for their vote or support. It is bullying people into silence and submission.
tends to be a tactic of the right-wing. There are way too many recent incidents to list here. I think it’s hilarious that you righties feel put upon when a public list exposes you for the bigots that you are.
I’m a socialist, which is why this decision concerns me. I already posted a link here to SosBallot.org, a pro-union site opposed to anti-union card check laws, and other encroachments on democracy.
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p>But you are right that KTN’s tactics are right wing: if you haven’t noticed, the KnowThyNeighbor founders endorsed Charlie Baker and marched with him in Pride last week:
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p>
When you link to MassResistance to back up your argument, you’re so far gone further discussion is futile.
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p>I’m pretty sure everyone’s already figured that out, but just in case, here’s the headline of the article Don’t Get Cute linked to:
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p>
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p>Anyone else noticing an amazing similarity between DGC’s writing style and obsessions and John Howard/dc surfer/egg and sperm guy?
I think uncalled for kkk/fascism references are close enough to call a Godwin’s law corollary.
(Pause for Alexander to beat me about the head and shoulders….)
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p>A long time public employee was non-renewed because he had signed the petition and a gay selectman took exception to it.
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p>He was not asked if it supported a vote, wanted to give the idea a chance, or was philosopically opposed to gay marriage. His signing was enough.
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p>Cute isn’t entirely paranoid.
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p>Nevertheless, the public display of public documents is an important principle, and the decision was correct.
Employees at Plymouth County Jail were fined for having a bumper sticker on their private car that supported the man running against the incumbent sheriff. Should we eliminate bumper stickers based on that single anecdote?
I guess I could see how somebody unfamiliar with the process could think that a petition would be private, just as someone could think something attached to a privately owned object is also private.
Until KTN put the signers on line, no one had ever been confronted with a petition signature before. They were unfamiliar with it because it hadn’t happened before.
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p>Everyone that puts a bumper sticker on their car intends for the public to see it.
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p>Maybe you should sit out the next day or two, Sabutai.
And I come back to see you still being thrashed in logic and rhetoric. While it’s fun to toy with somebody scrabbling about to build a gossamer justification for their cock-eyed rationalizations, as has been happening in this thread, after a while it just gets boring.
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p>You just need to accept that publicly supporting bigotry is no longer a cost-free act.
because though today the issue is gay marriage, next year it might be a petition to raise the gas tax, or a petition to protect abortion rights, or, how about a lesbian running for Governor. I suppose that’s when you will say, if it matters to you (and Grace Ross apparently didn’t), you’ll say “you know, those tea baggers and religious nuts should not be allowed to see the signers names and addresses on petitions anymore, because they are making it hard to collect enough signatures to get it on the ballot, and they are putting themselves in harms way, publishing their home addresses for all the John Salvi’s out there.”
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p>Hopefully you won’t wait until someone is harmed before realizing that putting names and addresses online is bad public policy.
signing a bigoted petition makes you a bigot*
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p>*at least if you knew what you were actually signing and weren’t hoodwinked, like over a thousand of the people who actually did sign the Massachusetts anti-marriage petition.
and matters more about keeping your name off of the World Wide Web. I know that I have avoided signing on-line petitions simply because I am trying to keep my google-ability to a minimum. It can have far reaching consequences with regard to employment and who knows what else. This will cause people to stop signing petitions. Maybe that’s a good thing for petitions we don’t like, but it’s very bad for petitions we want signed that now won’t get signed.
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p>Most people are very private creatures and will avoid public displays of personal opinions if at all possible. For example, it’s easy to get someone to say they will vote for a particular candidate, but getting them to agree to display a lawn sign takes much more persuasion.
“Most people are very private creatures and will avoid public displays of personal opinions if at all possible.”
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p>Seems to me that Facebook has successfully bet its business model on this sentence not being true.
People share pictures between family members and friends as well as other information like: “I went to the fireworks last night. They were really awesome and we should make it a gathering event next year.” They don’t wear their politics on their sleeves necessarily or share other private information. It’s a way for parents to communicate with children in college and also family members who live far away. The only way you can actively participate is to join, so they may logon long enough to send or read a brief message and that’s it.
My point was that Facebook is successful because so many people are willing to put themselves out there. I’m very careful about what I post, but it seems like everytime you turn around Facebook is assuming that people want more and more things to be shared with more and more people. You have to monitor your privacy settings carefully to make sure Facebook doesn’t expose you more than you intended.
to post personal things on-line. I was floored when I learned my mother-in-law has an account. I don’t think she uses it much but I hope she gets that the information is not necessarily private, and privacy policies should be taken with a grain of salt, since they can change at a moments notice, as you noted, without barely a notification.
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p>While I’m not in agreement with other things that Don’t Get Cute has contributed to this site, I do think she has a point here. At the very least, there should now be a disclosure that must be read to every potential signee that this record is public knowledge and the information you provide may be posted on the internet. This will definitely reduce the number of people willing to sign, yes, even for pro-gay rights policies – unintended consequences suck.
…(and in writing big enough to actually read)
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p>The first being the one you suggest reminding people that signatures and addresses are a matter of public record. The second stating something like that signing the petition only indicates putting the candidate/question on the ballot and should not be construed as support for the question or candidate on the merits. Informed consent is always crucial in these cases, IMO.
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p>One thing about this particular case that is somewhat different from others is that to many, myself included, the very notion of voting on this is offensive, so the notion of “I don’t support banning SSM; I just think we should have the right to vote on it.” is going to generate less sympathy than other questions or candidates you could substitute for “banning SSM” in the above quote.
without needing a majority vote to make it so.
There are 125 replies on this posting, of which 42 are from “Don’t get cute”. That is about 34% of the replies.
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p>Seriously, if there are “Rules of the Road” regarding declaring yourself if you have a conflict of interest or a connection to a certain politician, candidate or cause, then please do so. If not, then please explain what could possibly motivate someone to spend so much time and energy argueing with nearly every post over a 4 day time span.
that only one other BMG user understands what is at stake here. I think it is worth trying to convince the rest why they are wrong about this. Liveandletlive gets it exactly right above:
I have no conflict of interest to disclose, except that as a citizen I want to be able to sign petitions and nominations papers without fear of repercussions, and might want to circulate petitions and papers and not have to do it in such a chilled and oppressive atmosphere.
that you do not understand that everyone has now, and has always had the right, to go to city hall or the Secretary of State’s office and ask to see the signature pages. They also can see your property tax information, they can see if you filed for a building permit or a zoning variance, they can see if you donated to a candidate by more than $50, and they can see if you signed nomination papers.
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p>The ONLY difference (and this is the ONLY difference) is that someone can look at the information online instead of going to city hall or the SEC to see the information. That is the only difference. Therefore:
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p>1) If you think that someone wanting to do something harmful with the information is going to let a trip to city hall or the SEC’s office deterred them, you are wrong. And
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p>2) If you or anyone else who feels the same way makes any effort to make property tax information, building permits, variance requests, nomination papers, candidate contributions over $50, or petition signing confidential, you will be strongly and vigorously opposed.
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p>It is called Open Government.
I knew that people could go and see the papers. It’s not necessarily a right, it is simply the way we’ve settled on, and it’s perfectly appropriate if you ask me. The issue is putting them online, in a searchable database, which is a separate issue from whether they are available for perusal at the city hall. Did you read liveandletlive’s comment? It’s the google-ability that people fear.
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p>Should I sign Joe Blow’s nomination papers and risk strangers harassing me when it turns out Joe Blow is pro-choice, or favors making condoms available to school kids or something like that? Why take that risk when I could just walk by? That risk is now a million times bigger than it was when people had to sift through hundreds of sheets at the SoS office to find my name. Now they can do it in their underwear when they are bored, and look up all their co-workers and see all the signers on their street or in their town. We don’t have to allow that, any more than we had to allow the KKK to know how everyone voted back before the secret ballot was introduced after the Civil War.
It’s either publicly available or it isn’t. If it’s available to the public, then any member of the public is free to do whatever he wants with that information, including photocopying it and stuffing it under doors, telling friends about it, writing it in the sky with a biplane, or putting it on the Internet. That’s how publicly available works.
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p>Before KTN, a person had to know how to get the info, go get it, and sort through it. Same data, arbitrarily higher barrier to access. That barrier served to segregate those who had access to the info (those with sufficient knowledge, time, or money to pay someone else to go hunt it down) with those who didn’t. Now, the barrier is lower, allowing more people to access that information at a low cost.
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p>
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p>That’s just it… if we’re going to make them public at the Town Clerk’s office, we do have to allow it to also be put on the Internet. It’s a public record, and you can’t restrict the flow of this non-copyrightable factual data.
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p>Now, if you want to argue that it shouldn’t be a public record at all, that’s a different argument. I disagree, but that’s neither here nor there.
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p>P.S. Signing a petition isn’t voting. It’s actually not at all like voting. Why, when you vote, exactly one person sees your ballot — you. When you sign a petition, the person holding the petition, the Town Clerk, anyone standing nearby, the 31 other people who sign that page of the petition after you all see that you’ve signed. Additionally, anyone else working on that petition has access to your name, and they are not legally restricted from telling anyone else either. Signing a petition is not private — unlike voting. Why on Earth would somebody who signed a petition, in public, gathered by some person he may or may not know, and left in the hands of that person expect their signature remain private? I can’t think of something much more public.
There can be degrees of how publicly available something is, and what can be done with civic records. We don’t have to allow all things to be put on the internet. Yes, we can restrict the flow, like we did with ballots in 1890’s.
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p>We can also make it not publicly available at all, so that unauthorized people can’t access it even at a clerks office, and have rules about how one gets to be authorized to see it and whether they are allowed to disseminate it.
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p>Remember the Seinfeld episode when Jerry got a girls phone number off an AIDS Walk signup sheet? He was roundly criticized, though he broke no law. Maybe there should be a law against doing that though.
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p>There is something to be said for fixing the petition process so that people cannot see who else has signed before you. The clerk is duty bound not to share the records they are not supposed to share, or look up records they are not supposed to look up.
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p>I would expect my signature to remain private because I expect it to merely be used to verify that I am eligible to sign the petition and that I only signed it once.
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p>Votes are not required to be private either. Do you favor going back to a public ballot, where everyone can know how anyone voted? That was an innovation that increased democracy and reduced lynching (but also allowed more fraud). Now the internet can be used to fix all these problems.
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p>That’s like arguing there can be degrees of pregnant. You is or you isn’t. If a document or record is public, it’s public. Anyone is free to view it, copy it, and disseminate it. That’s what it is to be public.
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p>Here we go again…
1. There is absolutely no prior art for “public except you can’t use this medium”. None. Why? It’s nonsensical, and it’s unenforceable. That leaves you with two options: either you is (including on the Internet) or you isn’t (available at all) — see below.
2. This has nothing to do with voting.
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p>We could. But, that’s a barrier both to open discourse and to the collection of sigs. Good luck collecting sigs when each one must be on its own piece of paper and sealed in an envelope. The mechanics of signature collection ensure that it simply can’t be private. You ignored that point the first time; I suspect you’ll continue to do so here.
is not put the sheets in a digital form that gets released to the public. Still use the same sheets, still collect and verify them the same way, but make a system like Thomas suggested, instead of releasing the data to the public.
With the singular exception of voting, secrecy is poisonous to Democracy. Things done in public, with the intent of influencing public policy, are and should be public acts. If the consequences of having people know what you’re doing is scary to you, either be brave, or don’t do it.
No one has been able to answer my first comment on this thread in over 100 tries.
Freedom of thought and conscience and association and the right to be secure in your persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable search and seizure, are vital to Democracy, and to civil rights in general. When I sign a petition, that signature is MINE, it is MY EFFECT, and I have a right for it to be secure against unreasonable search and seizure. Posting my effect for everyone to see is an unreasonable violation of my security.
When you sign a petition, that signature is public information. The next person to look at the petition can see it. The person after that can see it. In fact every person who looks at that petition can see it. You have no rights to prevent them from seeing it, because that is the intrinsic nature of petitions. People get to read them, and to see who has signed them. They have a right to do that. If you don’t like it, use invisible ink.
Releasing it in digital, searchable, publishable form so that not only the next person, but everyone with access to the internet can see it, is an unreasonable violation of my privacy. And everyone knows it is bad form to read the names of the other people who signed before you, even if it doesn’t happen to be illegal.
…that says it’s “bad form” to read previous signatures. I’m sure I’ve done it plenty and I fully expect that those who sign after me might see mine.
Elaine: Oh, you’re not gonna copy a girl’s phone number off an AIDS charity list!
Jerry: (copying down the number) Elaine, you should admire me…I’m aspiring to date a giving person.
Elaine: You’re a taking person.
Jerry: That’s why I should date a giving person. If I date a taking person, everyone’s taking, taking, taking, no one’s giving – it’s bedlam!
I bet the population of people who “know” that is tiny – possibly only one. Part of the reason people sign petitions is to show support for the issue or candidate. See that word “show”? It means to display – as in having people look at it.
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p>You’ve been making up fantasies about how stuff works and what it all means for a couple of days. I’m going to stop playing now, because you’re not arguing in good faith, and I have better things to do.
Anyone can circulate and sign petitions intended to show support for an issue or candidate. They usually say something like “We the undersigned demand the US get out of El Salvador” or something like that. And people that sign those kinds of petitions I think know that their name will be visible, though perhaps they don’t expect their name to be visible on the web, perhaps they just want their name to be one of thousands. And they don’t usually put their home address. And there are now online petitions, but people signing those rarely include their home address, if ever. If people want to take a public stand bravely using their real name and address, nothing stops them from doing that.
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p>These petitions are not like those, however. First of all, they do not say “we the undersigned endorse” or demand anything, they merely nominate someone or something to a vote. And they have never been used to make a public statement before, campaigns have never taken their stack of sheets and printed them in newspapers, or read aloud the names of the signers, because they aren’t actual endorsees, they didn’t agree to have their signing be construed as an endorsement. People that sign civil voter petition papers simply aren’t doing it with the same purpose that they sign political petitions, and they know it.
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p>And the biggest difference is that civil voter petition papers are required in order to put an issue or candidate on the ballot. Without them in the process, there would be 600 candidates on the ballot, and 10,000 issues for the concon to consider every year. The petition drive is intended to weed out the frivolous candidates and issues by making them prove that there are more than a few actual voters out there who consider them worthy to be on the ballot. That’s all these do, they don’t make political statements. They are a civic mechanism, part and parcel with voting itself.
You need to stop using words when you don’t know their meaning.
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p>effects
n.
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p>personal property, belongings, baggage, possessions; see property 1.
http://www.yourdictionary.com/…
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p>Personal effects is a reference to everyday items of personal use, usually referred to in the disposition of belongings in a will. It includes clothes, cosmetics and items of adornment. Personal effects can include such things as jewelry, appliances, tools, furniture, clothing, china, silver, coin collections, works of art, and the like
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p>http://definitions.uslegal.com…
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p>Nothing remotely related to signatures.
Yeah you might be right, but it’s a living constitution, and they didn’t know about Flangers, Phase 90’s, and Distortion +’s.
Now you just sound like lasthorseman.
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p>Look, I can do it too!
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p>Under the third protocol of the elders of zion, it’s clear that mayor mccheese cannot legally be indicted for robble robble robble!
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p>And of course that was back before America was doomed by the fascist signature exposureists trying to legalize gay marriage so the UNocalypse could be manifested.
If you believe Mayor McCheese cannot be indicted for robble robble robble then you must support the stoning of witches.
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p>Heresy, Heresy!!!
…takes the prize for the most hilarious constitutional interpretation I think I’ve ever heard. A signature is not an effect, that refered to physical property. If anything it’s closer to testifying against oneself, which you have a right not to do, so if you don’t like it – DON’T SIGN!
and has a lasting effect, so I think it is even more of an effect than mere possessions. And besides, “papers” are protected too, and when a person puts his signature on a paper, it becomes partly his paper, if you ask me. Certainly there is nothing on the sheet saying that the signer consenting to the search, and most people did not expect it. i think it is unreasonable seizure and search of people papers and effects.
It’s not even the campaign’s paper. It is the property of the state and by extension the public. Campaigns often use them to build support as well. I’ve mentioned making this more obvious as a possibility because the one right people do have relative to a signature is informed consent. Also did you seriously say that a signature is an “effect” because it has a more lasting “effect” than other forms of property? Puns can be fun, but they are generally not the basis for legal definitions!
When you vote, no other person has access to the contents of your vote.
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p>When you sign a petition, at a minimum
* the collector
* every single person who signs after you
* any administrative person who aggregates the sheets
* anyone who is standing nearby and can see you sign
all know that you signed. Any one of those people could publish their knowledge, perfectly legally, in written, video, Internet, or any other form. It’s not a secret.
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p>There’s no such thing as a little bit pregnant, and there’s no such thing as a little bit secret. This is why, from a technical standpoint, the idea of keeping a public petition out of the public record just doesn’t make any sense.
Right, it is not a vote, first of all, in that it doesn’t declare your preference for anything. So we accept a small risk of people seeing our name, mainly because tightening up that part of the process would be quite impossible, and there are usually enough people willing to take that much risk that it doesn’t cause too much of a chill.
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p>And, votes could be done the exact same way, where people cast their vote by signing publicly visible sheets, and people could look at your ballot after you leave it at the polling station, it could even have your name and address on it, and be put on line too.
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p>Why can’t states just not release the names and addresses of signers in digital form? Are you saying a law prohibiting posting the names and addresses of signers would be unconstitutional? This case did not rule that way, it simply said states could release it if they wanted to. That’s why I pursue this thread, because this decision did not settle anything, states should still follow Thomas’s advice and find a narrowly tailored solution. The secret ballot is not unconstitutional, is it?
But don’t you dare even try to take Open Government away from me.
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p>The expression about Free Speech applies here as well. I may not like your choice to sign or not sign a petition or your views on Open Government, but I will fight to the death anyone who tries to take that right from away from you (or me), or deny me my rights under an open government system. What you proposing is censureship, pure and simple, and it is WRONG.
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p>
Ah, back to square one.
How many times can you be wrong? Open Government does not take away the right to a secret ballot any more than being able to see the departure times of an airline online takes away your right to drive a car. They are totally, completely, distinctly, definitionally, and obviously different.
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p>When you have the time, read the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The word petition appears 91 times in the online version and the word vote/voter appears more than 100 times. By constitutional law, the process is an open process.
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p>and
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But the point is the same. Votes and Petitions are not interchangeable. Never have been, never will be.
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for ballots and petitions, and that they are different things (only votes actually change the law or government, petitions only put candidates or issues on the ballot). My question to you was, are you in favor, as a “fight to the death” advocate of “Open Government”, of getting rid of the secret ballot?
other than to pick arbitrary fights.
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p>Voting, by definition and by statue, is secret and lives by a completely separate set of rules from the process of a petition.
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p>A petition, by definition and by statue, is a government process that is subject to the open government rules and as such is public and lives by a completely separate set of rules from the process of a vote.
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p>Both are governed by the constitution or other governing documents ( by-laws, Robert’s Rules of Order, etc. ) depending upon the governing body.
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p>I will “fight to the death” for the a vote taken by the city, state or federal government to be secret and to remain secret. I will also “fight to the death” for the Open Government rights of a petition to remain open and public. They are not the same thing and I take great personal offense that you insult me with baseless accusation against my patriotism because you are losing an arguement.
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p>My point is that your logic is so over the top twisted and damaged, that you might as well conclude that I like the Beatles more than the Rolling Stones because I state that I watch South Park. One has nothing to do with the other, whether you are talking about “Voting and Petitions”, or “Music and Cartoons”. You demonstrate with each post that you have no concept of the principles behind voting and the principles of a petition, and that you would rather have the Nanny state determine what you can see and what you cannot see, because you are afraid.
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p>You are wrong on so many levels that rather than fight the original fight, which is whether information on a petition should be available online, you are now accusing anyone who does not believe in the same thing you do as being opposed to one of the most basic principles of the American system of government (and by extension or inferance, being un-American).
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p>
then you are not so committed to Open Government, or maybe “Open Government” is only understood to apply to things that are not off limits to public knowledge. Conveniently unprincipled, but fair enough.
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p>So, you didn’t actually say so, but it sounds like you think votes should be secret. I agree that a secret ballot is a good thing and should be considered off limits to public knowledge, and, for the SAME REASONS that we instituted the secret ballot in the 1890’s and which still apply today, I feel the same way about petitions. You are inconsistent, and I think you should examine why you feel votes should be secret but petitions open. I get that they are different things and can be secret or open independently, that’s not the point. The point is why the inconsistency?
… are treated differently it is not an indication being inconsistent. But we’ve been over this before.
It is inconsistent application of the principle, calling into question whether either is a principle at all.
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p>People who see value in a secret ballot should see the same value in secret petitions.
… if the two things being compared were not dislike. Rather obvious point really.
Because wherever there is inconsistency, one can always say that they’re different things, so its not inconsistency. Inconsistency would only seem to cover dislike treatment at different times of the exact same thing, and even then, I suppose you would say that it isn’t inconsistent because the times were different.
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p>Example, professor gives all his female students extra attention, and neglects his male students. Inconsistent? Not according to you, since males and females are different. The fact that they are all students gets swept under your rationalization. So yes, petitions and votes are different, but they are both mechanisms of freedom and democracy, and since he is basing his support for the secret ballot on it being needed in order to have freedom and democracy, he’s being inconsistent by not citing that same need to call for secret petitions. Either that, or he is being inconsistent by not citing the principle of Open Government in calling for an end to the secret ballot. Heck, he’s being inconsistent by not calling for the Comfy Chair.
“one can always say that they’re different things”.
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p>No, don’t be obtuse. One can make a case that they are the same for purposes of the distinction or different for purposes of the distinction. You’ve made your case for ‘sameness’. Others have made their case for ‘difference’. You’re in the distinct minority here. Sure that, in and of itself, doesn’t make you wrong, but it does put you on the other side of some very thoughtful people here. Moreover, it seems obvious to me that the degree to which the differences matter are not black and white but rather a matter of opinion (made clearer by the rather obvious facts that there is utility both in public disclosure and anonymity) – so its narcissistic to proclaim that everyone else here is charitably stupid rather than evil.
… if the two things being compared were not dislike. Rather obvious point really.
You say I did not say whether I support a secret vote, yet I said..
This is beyond the realm of reasoning and logic. You falsely accuse me and others on this post of taking position none of us have taken, then denigrate us for doing so. This is the Sean Hannity school of pathetic, insipid, through the looking glass debating, and IMHO makes you look like an idiot.
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p>You are wrong about Open Government, you are wrong about the secret ballot, you are wrong about the internet, you are wrong about petitons and you are wrong about the difference between a vote and a petition.
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p>Nowhere does it say that you have the right to a confidential petition because you are afraid. So get over it.
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p>So this is my final statement, because I have had it. As far as I am concerned, Don’t Get Cute has lost this arguement on every single level and I will not waste anymore time discussing the petition process.
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That doesn’t mean there isn’t one. The argument is actually much stronger that the Constitution protects people attempting to petition the Government from people attempting to chill their efforts by threatening to expose them to harassment. The secret ballot is not even mentioned, because open meetings and open elections were all there was back then, but there was also a right of ‘the people’ to peaceably assemble and petition the Government, and that right is specifically not to be abridged, and the state’s practice of allowing people post the signers on the internet abridges that right to peaceably assemble and petition the government.
The right of petition means you can’t be legally penalized for writing a letter to your member of Congress. It says nothing about secrecy. In fact I would argue that coupled with free speech and press the assumption is that the concept of persuasion is intended to be a public act. If you have a specific concern in dealing with a public agency congressional offices ARE conscious of confidentiallity concerns, however.
I live in a town with open town meeting. When ever a roll call or show of hands is taken – say to ratify a police contract or to allow an override – I raise my hand for everybody else in town to see.
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p>Over 200 of the 351 communities in the state transact business in this way. And annual town meeting ALWAYS carries a lot of disagreements.
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p>Do you think these people are going to be scared of a published petition?
I would be scared of appearing on a published petition, and I’m scared of speaking in public and I don’t like confrontational situations. So I am thankful that I can go an vote on issues secure in the knowledge that I won’t be hassled or harassed for my vote.
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p>I still have a question for you: do you think we should do away with the secret ballot and go back to an open ballot?
I’m sure plenty of people are hesitant to speak at Town Meeting, more out of general stage freight than specific concern about being harassed.
Peter Porcupine is saying that because some people like Peter aren’t afraid to speak at town meetings, that there is no problem, anyone that’s afraid to sign a petition is just a ninny. Misses the point a little bit.
if you vote, the knowledge that you voted is public. If you donate to a particular campaign and not the others in a particular race, that contribution is public. One can pretty much be highly certain that you voted for the candidate or campaign to which you contributed.
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p>If you put up a lawn sign and we check to see whether or not you voted, we can conclude that you most likely voted for that person.
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p>Just because some people are ignorant of the fact that initiative petition information is public does not mean that KnowThyNeighbor did anything illegal or unethical.
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p>I have been criticized by many that i should have waited until “after” the signature collection to announce that I would post names. I felt this disingenuous as I did not think that people should be tricked into finding out later that their names would be put on line.
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p>The point being is that most political analysists will say, and I agree, that regarding KTN’s strategy, some will sign because they are angry, others will not sign because they have fallen into some sort of fear mentality due to the bias of one campaign…it all balances out. KTN probably does not effect the bottom line of signature count, but the one thing we do, is that for now, while this strategy is new and provocative, the conversation of the issue makes for consistent dialogue and an informed or more aware electorate.
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… isn’t correct: “…that only one other BMG user understands what is at stake here.” Disagreement is not necessarily lack of understanding. It’s entirely possible to recognize the utility of permitting anonymity and the utility of disclosure and come out with differing valid opinions on which should be preferred.
Because the alternative is not pretty, that everyone else does understand that putting names on line causes a chilling effect and makes it harder to gather signatures, as well as leads to strife and bullying and even violence against people that sign.
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p>Liveandletlive is the only other BMG user who thinks that’s a bad thing, I guess. It’s not too late for the rest of you to agree, what’s a few more comments?
… that you were ‘charitable’ about. I don’t see how the use of that term makes sense in this context. Claiming that people haven’t understood you here doesn’t seem a charitable characterization of skills of comprehension at all.
Thread over. Besides, your question answered itself.
you’re wrong about.
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p>Oh, wait – there are two statements in your comment. They’re both wrong.
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p>At least you’re consistent.
Sorry, I had this understanding of it:
Thanks for educating me on that. Also, I see from that wiki article that it refers specifically to Hitler and the Nazi’s, not fascism or the KKK, which are what I brought up in the context of this thread. So it shouldn’t have been invoked anyhow.
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p>So, thread still alive, I’ll answer Mr. Lynne’s question. I am being charitable when I say that people do not understand what is at stake, because the alternative is worse than mere lack of comprehension that it will have a chilling effect on civic participation and hurt democracy and cause lots of suffering and strife and possibly even violence. That’s what everyone but livenadletlive might not understand. You can say it’s impossible to “understand” what something might do, but I think that’s the right word in this case because I am quite sure it will do that. If you are arguing that it won’t, or might not, have that effect, I think that is essentially the same thing as saying that you “don’t understand” that it might have that effect. I understand that it will. The alternative, that they do understand that it might harm civic participation and cause strife and suffering and possibly violence, but think that’s OK, I think is worse for hopefully obvious reasons. So, it is charitable to assume that they don’t understand what is at stake.
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p>Understand?
That’s being condescending (you don’t agree with my reasoning and therefore you lack understanding, and you should find my saying so charitable because stupid is better than evil, which is the only other possibility that I can think of) and possibly ego-maniacal. People have already said upthread that they understand that people might feel public pressure should their signatures become public. This indicates to me that they actually do understand. They just find civic utility in the possibility of shame in a petition action. They do understand. You don’t understand how they can hold that opinion consistently, which is amazing because about a third of this thread was spent explaining it to you from about 4 different people.
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p>And you really need to stop using the word violence because that is a[n extreme] straw man. It makes you look stupid.
in stifling civic participation and punishing and harassing people who support a position or candidate you disagree with. I think it is more charitable to think they don’t realize how much is at stake by doing that than to think they actually think that it is a good thing to be able to do.
Its a disincentive for shameful positions, which is a civic good. Privacy is also a civic good. What people are disagreeing with on here is how these two weigh against each-other in different contexts. You can make an argument against the secret ballot – there would be fewer votes for shameful public figures like David Duke. Insisting that there is no valid case for the utility of shame is misguided. Insisting the way you’re doing it (charitibility) is narcissistic and confirms my last comment.
Before the secret ballot, there were fewer votes for progressive candidates, because there was a small and intimidating group of activists who saw the civic utility in ‘shaming’ voters. They argued against the secret ballot the same way people here argue against secret petitions. There had never been a secret ballot before.
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p>You seem to take it as a given that the people who are intimidated are feeling shame and ought to feel shame. I think often it is the intimidators who ought to feel shame for their position, and the people who voted against the KKK’s wishes should not be insulted 120 years later by implying that they should have felt shame.
is intelligent and knows the difference between a public petition, a vote and a secret ballot. The consensus is that a petition is public and has nothing to do with secret ballots.
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p>By a vote of everyone but one for, and one against (maybe two), the insipid Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck wannabes have show themselves for the fools that they are. Bravo.
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p>Question: What is the over/under that I will now be attacked for hating America, vilifying the secret ballot, conspiring with the KKK, aspiring to be a Nazi, wanting human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria!?
Is when if someone doesn’t agree with you, then you must be hell bent on destroying America. There have been several instances where posters, including myself, have stated that a petition is a public process, and have then been accused of being opposed to ballots, or precisely, “the secret vote” and therefore against one of the fundamental principles of America and on par with the people who let the KKK come to power or were afraid to stand up to the Nazi’s. If you do not believe me, hit CTRL + F and search for KKK and Nazi.
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p>Petitions are a public process, have always been a public process and I do not want the Nanny State determining what I can and cannot see, either by a Freedom of Information request, by going to city hall or the state house, or by looking at things online. Open Government means “Open” Government, and this point appears to have escaped at least one extreme poster who has responded to nearly every single posting here.
Another predictable “everything in the headline” piece of faux outrage from the editor’s favorite GOP sockpuppet.