Tell your legislators: Pass bill to fight signature-gathering trickery

[Ian David]

Please Read, Take Action and Forward


This Thursday, the Massachusetts State Senate will vote on S. 2251, the Election Reform Bill. This bill will help eliminate the fraud, trickery and deception that the paid signature-gatherers our opponents hired have used to gain signatures on the anti-marriage equality petition.

Urge your legislators to support the bill.

Many legislators do not know the full extent of the deception. They do not know that there have been over 150 instances of trickery and confusion reported to MassEquality. They do not know how many people fell victim to "Bait-and-switch" practices: citizens being asked to sign a petition to allow wine to be sold at their local grocery stores, being told they need to sign the wine petition two or three times, and then finding that they had inadvertently signed the anti-gay marriage petition. We must make sure every legislator knows about the deception before the vote takes place on Thursday!

Write your legislators today.

The bill would:

* Make it easier for voters to withdraw their signatures if their signatures were forged or obtained by fraud.
* Criminalize "bait-and-switch" practices.
* Disqualify signatures collected through "bait-and-switch."
* Require all future petitions to be printed in a different color so it is easier to know one petition from another.
* Require organizations that are using paid signature-collectors to report how much they are paying the collectors.

Much of the damage on this petition has already been done. But this bill ensures that the next time a petition is advanced, it will be much harder for money-making outfits to take over the process. It will also make it easier for citizens to withdraw their name from this petition if the signature was gained through use of deception and fraud. Finally, its passage will continue to call attention -- with the legislature, the Attorney General and the Secretary of State -- to the significant abuses on the anti-marriage equality petition.

Please email your legislators today.

Sincerely,

Marc Solomon
Political Director
MassEquality

MassEquality.org is dedicated to ensuring that the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decision on marriage equality is upheld, and that any anti-gay amendment or legislation is defeated.
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