Got a response back from the Seattle campaign. No dice on online petition and they have a couple of interesting reasons:
Hi Emmett,
sorry for the late response. No, unfortunately, we are not going to have them available online. We want to use union printers for all petitions and having them online would allow our opponents too [...]
Seattle PI:
Reed, the secretary of state, said he's noticed another shift in how initiatives are used, and not just by citizens.
"Historically, they were kind of a safety valve for the public," Reed said.
"If a special interest blocked important legislation that people really cared about, they were able to go directly to the people through the [...]
Kurt Weinreich of Olympia sponsored a series of initiatives a few years ago, and apparently had some interest in promoting his initiatives by shrinking the size of the initiative petition to "post card size." His thought was that he would mail out post cards to a list of supporters and they would mail them back [...]
After an exhaustive rainy Saturday search of commercial paper makers, I have come to learn there is no such thing as 11×14 paper. This is, of course, why so many people who sponsor initiatives just jump up to 11×17 (here and here). The current size makes no sense, it does not reflect any sort of [...]
Kayne writes about going to the mall:
Paid Signature Gatherers at Westfield
The conservatives are out in force this season. While at Westfield Shopping Center in Tukwila I was approached by two different signature gatherers. When asked, they identified themselves as paid signature gatherers working for Tim Eyman.
I was not surprised by the first request as it [...]
And, when I say “we,” I mean to include such Republicans as Toby Nixon and Pam Roach. Back in the old days of 2003, when David Goldstein and Tim Eyman were first staring each other down, there was a good idea that didn’t win in the legislature.
Back in 2003 Toby Nixon introduced HB 1014 (in [...]
A Seattle petition campaign is up and running, but no word or site of any online petition files at their site. I emailed them just to check.
TO: cncseattle@gmail.com
SUBJECT: posting petition online?
Hi, I was wondering if you were going to post a signature petition pdf file online. Since Seattle allows 8.5×11 sized initiative petitions, I would [...]
…prepare blank petitions and cause them to be printed upon single sheets of white paper of good quality, nine and one-half inches in width and thirteen inches in length,with a margin of one and three-quarters inches at the top for binding.
9.5×13? Did they just pull that out of a hat? That is so close to [...]
More details here and here, but let me say it plainly.
There are 27 states that have some form of citizen initaitve or referendum process. Eleven of these states require some sort of size for signature petitions. Eight of these states have a petition size requirement that would allow 8.5×11 sized petition.
Washington state's required size is [...]
