This past weekend was pretty busy for me, with finishing up one house/cat-sitting gig and getting ready for another, going to a ceramics sale for a friend who's moving to another state, and signing the last two of the ballot initiative petitions I hadn't had a chance to sign yet. (The very first petitions I signed were for the Freedom of Information Act measures; if you have yet to sign, please do.)
Signing the petitions doesn't necessarily mean I'll vote for the measures if they make it to the ballot, but I think it's only fair that they have a fighting chance to get there in the first place. Considering all the barriers to ballot access that have been erected in the past few years (some after failing before voters twice before), I believe anyone who cares enough about the motto of this state ought to actually try to let "the people rule."
Or we could let those who don't want us to have a say in our government (unless we agree with them) win.
I have friends who are collecting signatures for various proposed initiatives, but as volunteers, so their names aren't on the lists of paid canvassers recently released by the Family Council as part of the Decline to Sign campaign against the abortion and marijuana amendments.
It's all well and good to campaign against an initiative, but publishing the names and towns of canvassers crosses a moral line. Decades ago it wouldn't be as big of a deal as there would be actual legwork involved in getting addresses and other information for those canvassers when all you have is the name and town, but now ... all you need is an Internet connection and you can find just about anything.
Over the years since I became Voices editor, I've heard from more than a few letter-writers who, having written a letter to the editor, later received hate mail at their addresses, or received harassing anonymous phone calls. But their addresses and phone numbers are never printed with their letters. The trolls aren't only online, unfortunately, but they use online resources to expand their reach. Oh, joy.
That's one of the reasons I'm so proud of our letter-writers who are willing to stand up for what they believe, using their own name instead of cowering behind an anonymous persona (remember, we don't print anonymous or pseudonymous letters on the Voices page).
As others, including some of those paid canvassers, have pointed out, the reasoning of letting people know where paid canvassers are collecting signatures is questionable at best, especially since signing events are well-advertised already, and at minimum gives off the appearance of an intimidation effort.
Rebecca Bobrow, director of strategy for Arkansans for Limited Government, said in a story by the Democrat-Gazette's Neal Earley after the abortion amendment names were released, "The canvassers working tirelessly to collect petitions in support of the Arkansas Abortion Amendment are proud of the work they are doing to promote reproductive liberty in the state and to engage in direct democracy--they aren't hiding. But when the Family Council releases lists of their names and whereabouts to their network of anti-choice protesters who vehemently, and sometimes violently, disagree with our work, it puts our team at great risk for harassment, stalking and other dangers."
Jerry Cox of the Family Council said, "If we had intended to intimidate anyone we would have included that [home address] information, but we deliberately decided not to put that on there."
But like I said, a name and a town are all that are needed nowadays. Heck, I've had two recent technology-aided incursions myself in the past few months, one of which would have cleaned out my checking account had I not been vigilant.
I don't care what side of an issue you may come down on, but surely we can all agree that political tactics like this go too far and endanger all of us, not just the people who have been exposed as being paid to collect signatures. It's not just that they're opened up to harassment and worse, but that those who allow this to happen are sacrificing basic human morals for political one-upmanship.
The world is not a place of binary choices, but of shades of gray. As I've said many times before, I'm no fan of politics as practiced today, and my beliefs are all over the map, just as I believe most people's are. I see no harm in letting people have their say at the ballot box. Not every ballot initiative has been successful, so why not let fairness rule and let those that have jumped through all the prior legal hoops have an honest chance to at least make it to the ballot?
Are we that afraid of how the people might vote that we need to needlessly hamstring them with additional requirements to make it even harder to make it to the ballot, and on top of that, make them fear for their lives?
That's just wrong, no matter how you slice it.
Assistant Editor Brenda Looper is editor of the Voices page. Email her at blooper@adgnewsroom.com. Read her blog at blooper0223.wordpress.com.
