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SCOTUS Rules Petiton Signatures Are Public Record
Reader SheeEttin reminds us that back in October, the Supreme Court accepted a case testing whether or not petition signers' names could be kept anonymous. (The premise was that the act of signing a petition is covered by free speech, and thus signers are entitled to anonymity, especially to protect them from harassment.) Now the Court has issued its ruling: signatures are part of the public record. "By a strong majority Thursday, the Supreme Court issued a setback for opponents of gay marriage who wanted to keep their identities secret. The justices favored transparency over privacy in a case testing whether signing a petition is a public act. The case began with a bill that the Washington state legislature passed in 2009, expanding the state's domestic partnership law. The new referendum was known as 'everything but marriage' for the enhanced rights it gave same-sex couples. People who opposed the bill gathered 120,000 signatures for a ballot measure asking voters to repeal it. That measure eventually reached Washington voters, who upheld 'everything but marriage.' Those who signed the repeal petition feared that they would be harassed if their names became public, so they went to court challenging Washington's Public Records Act. They argued that signing a petition is speech that is protected from disclosure. But in Thursday's 8-1 ruling, the Supreme Court disagreed. 'Such disclosure does not, as a general matter, violate the first amendment,' Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court."
...if you feel about something so strongly that you are willing to sign a petition about it, you shouldn't be hiding your name. Stop being a coward, and own up to your opinions/decisions.
Living With a Nerd
Signing a petition is very much like grabbing a sign and picketing. On the flip side it is similar to casting a ballot. I don't know which side to agree with on this one.
I think it should be expected that if you sign a petition, the information is public. Otherwise, there would be no way to validate the petition. The constitution protects free speech, although not necessarily ANONYMOUS free speech. There are other avenues for anonymous free speech anyway.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
Shouldn't the same be true about voting?
I once took an excursion to Reddit, and later HN. Unlimited up/down voting sucks when dealing with a hive-mind.
It balances things out.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
Cowards. If you are willing to put your name on a petition to get a measure on the ballot, then you should be willing to stand by your decision. Claiming you don't want your name to be revealed because your friends and neighbors might think differently about you is no excuse to try and hide from your decision.
It's always funny when those who try to wrap themselves in the veils of freedom and democracy are generally the first ones who don't want others to know what they're up to.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
The SCOTUS pointed out that there are exceptions, and the lawyer for the petitioners stated that he believes their case falls in the realm of those exceptions. So it'll go back to a lower court to determine if it within them.
It strikes me as odd though. I thought the whole point of signing a petition was to publicly announce your support for the petition. I mean, if you don't feel strongly enough to write your name publicly, why not just write Mickey Mouse? And hell, if there is going to be no public scrutiny of who is brave enough to actually back the petition, what's to keep the petitioner from just writing Mickey Mouse 120,000 times.
There SHOULD be an element of risk to signing a petition. You have to be willing to put your name on the line, literally. That includes showing support for the issue, and dealing with people who may disagree with you.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Okay, so petition signatures are public record? How about henceforth Congress is only permitted to pass legislation by roll call?
Government of the who by the huh for the what-now?
Pining for the days when The Glorious MEEPT!!! graced SlapDash with his wisdom.
I have a question then. Since the VOTE is a public action too, does this ruling means that voting signatures should be public too? And don't get me wrong, but i really want to know who voted for who....
Secret ballot is how we impose our morals upon others anonymously.
The issue with petitions it that it would be prohibitively expensive to create a system to submit petitions for anonymous votes exactly one time per eligible voter. It is not anonymous because it cannot be validated if it is.
Please take your "they are imposing their morals" rhetoric somewhere else.
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
Or maybe the resistance to releasing the names is that most of them are fake anyway, so this "overwhelming" number of concerned citizens is really just a red herring anyway.
More Twoson than Cupertino
Voting has the identity verified, that how they get away with anonymity. As petitions do not and can not be verified by a trusted source, they need to be public.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
If I go into a voting booth, I close a curtain and nobody's looking over my shoulder.
If I sign a petition, I can see the names and addresses of everyone who signed the petition before me (at least the ones on the same page I'm currently signing). And after I sign it, I know the next guy, or the signature gatherer, can read what I just wrote.
That's a pretty clear difference in expectation of privacy if you ask me.
It's a magical time when those who would speak out against same sex marriage have feel the need to hide from the public.
Irony can be fun!
-A
Actually, the LOGS of who voted - not what they voted for - ARE public record. I can tell which elections you voted in; it's public record that you voted - just not who you voted FOR.
A vote is a decision. A petition signature is a public, open attempt to submit an issue to the voters.
Petition signatures need to be public. The number one electoral fraud in this country is falsification of petiition signatures. Hotly contested races will hire outside firms to verify petition signatures on a routine basis, and this is necessary in any adversarial system.
Usually only a small number - 1-5% of registered voters - is required to put a measure or candidate on the ballot, which then leads to a secret vote.
Democracy has risks. If there's any issue that can't muster between one and five percent of people willing to take a public stand on an issue than we're already doomed.
Also, signing a petition is NOT necessarily an endorsement of an issue or candidate. It is merely a declaration that a person feels an issue is worthy of a vote. It usually - but not always - indicates a signer supports an issue. I have signed petitions for candidates who I did not support simply because the candidate I DID support was already on the ballot but I thought the opposing candidate had a right to be heard.
Now the Court has issued its ruling: signatures are part of the public record.
The Court decided no such thing. What the Court did rule was that a law that made them part of the public record did not violate the First Amendment. Whether petition signatures are actually part of the public record is up to the states.
"The signers of the Declaration of Independence have asked that their names be redacted for fear of harassment by citizens of the British Empire" Yeah, that would work...
I live in the Seattle area. Among my hobbies and avocations are community theater and gay rights, even though I am straight. I am for same sex marriage (actually, I'm for getting government getting out of the business of licensing marriage and getting religion out of the business of defining it), I've performed them, gratis. However, I have a hard time with this. The more vocal of the gay community were trying to bully state voters who were opposed to a bill that would provide almost all the benefits of marriage to gay couples.
I routinely sign petitions that, even if I disagree with the premise, I believe deserves a fair airing in public. As a result of this action, I had a minor break with some of my gay friends who were very angry and wanted the names of all the signers.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
Isn't it kind of obvious that the whole point of signing a petition and printing your name (and probably address as well), that you are formally and non-anonymously declaring that you want something?
With anonymity, what is left of the very idea of petition? Nothing; you might as well get rid of the signatures, names and addresses altogether, replace the lines with a grid of boxes, and say at the top, "Check off a box if you want ___" and then give a sheet full of Xs written with different pens in different styles to your government representative to totally impress them with how passionately their constituents feel about something.
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