Here's another interesting little piece that has far reaching implications beyond the marriage equality movement. It poses some interesting question: Are the names of individuals who sign a petition to put an initiative on ballot public data? Should those names be readily available to anyone on the Internet?

The question that comes to my mind is this: if the roles were reversed, and it was a group of religious conservatives asking for the names of individuals who signed a petition in favor of a marriage equality ballot initiative so they could post it on a website, would the parties involved still be okay with the practice? Would it still be about "fostering communication"? Is it okay to use such database to publicly "shame" those who disagree with them? Would they be okay if others tried to "shame" them with the same approach?

Then again, there is something to be said about making a public declaration. If you're going to put your name to ink, you should be ready to defend your decision to the public even if its unpopular.

The other annoyance is that marketers can buy these petitions too for marketing purposes.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/01/us/01petition.html

KnowTheyNeighbor.org's response is linked here:
http://knowthyneighbor.blogs.com/home/2009/06/whosignedorg-refutes-intimidation-charges-will-post-names-of-petition-signers-as-planned.html

Quote :

"SEATTLE — At a time when voters in many states are using petitions to qualify ballot measures on issues from gay rights to property rights, a legal dispute over the identity of 138,000 petition signers here is raising new questions about privacy, free speech and elections in the Internet age. On Tuesday, voters in Washington State will decide whether to extend to registered domestic partners the same rights married couples have, short of marriage. But the campaign over the referendum, placed on the ballot by opponents of same-sex marriage, has been overshadowed by one issue: whether the individual names of the petitioners should be made public, and ultimately, circulated on the Web. The United States Supreme Court weighed in last week, deciding to let stand a lower court ruling that ordered Washington’s secretary of state not to disclose the names of the signers. The Supreme Court did not rule on the merits of the issue, and it is unclear whether it will. The case, legal experts say, could chart new territory well beyond Washington State. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which had ordered the release of the signatures, said the case presented “novel questions of whether referendum petition signatures are protected speech under the First Amendment.” Some advocates for releasing the names who support the expansion of the state’s domestic partnership rights say they want to post the names of petition signers as a check against fraud but also to encourage potentially “uncomfortable” conversations with the people who signed the petitions. Knowthyneighbor.org, one of the groups, in the past has posted on the Web the names of petition signers in Arkansas, Florida and Massachusetts. Signing a petition, these groups say, can be a step toward making law, and in fact, many ballot measures are intended to bypass or override the legislative process. That argument echoes one made by the Washington secretary of state’s office, which was barred by the courts from releasing the names even though the state’s public records law does not exempt the signatures from release; the office has released names of petition signers on other ballot measures in the past. “Our disclosure law demands that we know who’s influencing the legislative process,” said David Ammons, a spokesman for Secretary of State Sam Reed, a Republican. Opponents of releasing the names, led by Protect Marriage Washington, the group behind the referendum, say gay rights groups are threatening free speech by intimidating petition signers. James Bopp Jr., the lead lawyer for the group, filed affidavits from people who said they felt threatened for taking their position on the issue. Larry Stickney, the campaign manager of Protect Marriage Washington, has also complained of feeling threatened, he said. “He has his children sleep in the hall of the middle of the house so they won’t be exposed to the street,” Mr. Bopp said. Opponents note that until recently Washington, as a practice, did not release names of petition signers. State officials said the policy changed about a decade ago after a review of the public records act. In many states, petition signatures are often considered public records and many private firms and the national political parties have used them to build databases for voter outreach. The practice has become more common as states have become able to provide the information in digital form. In Washington State, a DVD with scanned images of signed petitions costs $25, but the laborious task of entering the names into a database is left to the buyer. In recent years, the state has received requests for copies of petition signatures from groups including real estate agents, teachers and a state conservative activist, Tim Eyman, who regularly leads antitax initiatives. Mr. Eyman did not follow through on those early requests, but Mr. Ammons said state records showed that a paid signature gatherer for Mr. Eyman has requested and received copies of petitions. Mr. Eyman is now part of a separate case in state court in which he is trying to keep signatures on his petitions private. The Supreme Court has ruled in cases involving disclosure and petitions in the past, but it has not directly addressed whether names of signers should be kept private. And, said Richard L. Hasen, a professor specializing in election law at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, “It’s never really confronted how the Internet changes the calculus.” As Eugene Volokh, a professor specializing in First Amendment issues at the University of California, Los Angeles, law school, put it, “Now, public access really is public access.” Mr. Volokh said that the “talk of retaliation” had added complexity to the Washington case and raised the question of whether, if the names are disclosed, “you’re really not going to get an accurate measure of public sentiment” because people will become reluctant to sign petitions. He said confrontation had been a theme in other gay rights campaigns, including in California last year with Proposition 8, whose passage outlawed same-sex marriage there. Concerns about intimidation and free speech have been raised in other states where knowthyneighbor.org has posted signatures. Tom Lang, the group’s co-director, said some gay rights organizations had distanced themselves from his work “because they understand the provocative nature of what we do.” Created in 2005 amid the fight over same-sex marriage in Massachusetts, the Web site was founded on a belief that “for social change to happen, there has to be a shaming part,” Mr. Lang said. Discussion, not intimidation, is the goal, he said. “I’m trying to get you to understand that if you’re going to try to take away my rights I want you to know what you’re doing,” he said. “In Washington you’re being deprived of that.” Arline Isaacson, a lobbyist who is co-chairwoman of the Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus, said her group first posted petition signers’ names on the Internet as far back as 2001, when the idea was solely to serve as a check against fraud in signature gathering. Ms. Isaacson now supports the way knowthyneighbor.org uses the signatures. She noted that the petition process was layered with various stages of public access, from the moment a signature gatherer engages with a potential signer, to the private databases those gatherers might build with the information, to the state validation process, which is often observed by advocates on various sides of whatever issue is at hand. “These names were never meant to be private,” Ms. Isaacson said. “It’s just that people never took advantage of it before.” John Matsusaka, head of the Initiative and Referendum Institute at the University of Southern California, said the debate was so new that its broad implications remained unclear. “It’s the Internet,” he said, “that you can put all this stuff online, that’s now making it much more potent.”"

11/2/2009 6:12:19 PM

what?! you mean the citizens may actually be held accountable for the government and institutions that they vote for???

god... our democracy may be irreparably harmed!!!!

11/2/2009 6:20:24 PM

The difference is that when you and I vote, who we actually vote for is anonymous unless we decide to consciously declare it in public. As it stands now, the same right does not exist for those who sign petitions for ballot initiatives. The question is whether or not such protections exist, or should exist beyond the minimum needed to verify a signature.

11/2/2009 6:44:12 PM

seems to me that when you sign your name, you are making a public statement. That's kind of why you are signing your name

11/2/2009 7:11:11 PM

It's an interesting question. My initial thought is to say that if the petition has a direct legal impact (such as 2,000 signatures gets a bill or proposition on a ballot) then yes, absolutely every one of those signatures should be public record. But otherwise, no I don't think it should be public record any more than the letters and phone calls a politician receives from their constituents should be public record (of course, they may be public record, in which case the petition should follow).

However, I can easily both sides of the argument and both have very valid concerns.

11/2/2009 7:47:54 PM

while I can see both sides of this issue, my problem with making the names public is that the only reason its requested is to make those signing social pariahs.

citizens of this country should not be afraid to participate in the democratic/legislative process.

11/2/2009 7:50:33 PM

maybe they shouldn't be afraid, but they should have a healthy respect for their responsibility and for the consequences of their political participation.

votes should remain confidential. political campaigning and participation (which is what signing a petition is), should not have any special protection.

11/2/2009 8:29:59 PM

Quote :

"while I can see both sides of this issue, my problem with making the names public is that the only reason its requested is to make those signing social pariahs."

That is not at all the reason for it. if it were, then why the hell are pro-gay groups supporting making the names public? Yes, some people may want to "out the petitioners," but that is hardly the intent of every one.

I understand that some people will be threatened. Why not just use our justice system to handle those cases when they arise?

11/2/2009 9:10:12 PM

exactly... just like the arguments against gun laws, hate crime laws, and general over-regulation of the markets, the same applies to this situation. There are already laws on the books to handle intimidation and threats to someone's safety. No need to create a new class of laws for this.

11/2/2009 9:37:26 PM