Fair Illinois files petition challenges
Fair Illinois files petition challenges
By Gary Barlow
Copyrigt by The Chicago Free Press
The Fair Illinois Committee, a volunteer effort organized to fight a right-wing effort to put an anti-gay marriage amendment referendum on the Illinois election ballot this November, filed challenges in Springfield June 26 to tens of thousands of petition signatures collected by the anti-gay group.
Protect Marriage Illinois had filed petitions containing more than 345,000 signatures in support of the anti-gay referendum with the Illinois State Board of Elections May 8. Since then, Fair Illinois, a coalition organized by Equality Illinois, the American Civil Liberties Union, PFLAG, the Gay Liberation Network, Lambda Legal and others, has used volunteers to go over the petitions and look for errors and signatures that aren’t from registered voters.
Illinois law requires that the Board of Elections certify 283,111 of the signatures as valid in order to put the referendum on the ballot. The referendum, if certified and approved by a majority of voters, would urge the Illinois Legislature to pass an amendment to the Illinois Constitution that would forbid recognition of gay and lesbian marriages, unions and partnerships.
Fair Illinois volunteers scrutinized every signature on the petitions. Reports from volunteers with the effort indicated that tens of thousands of signatures were challenged as invalid, far more than necessary to keep the referendum question off the ballot.
The Board of Elections is expected to take some two months to review and rule on the Fair Illinois challenge, filed legally on behalf of PFLAG activists Char and John Cepak, as plaintiffs, against PMI.
By Gary Barlow
Copyrigt by The Chicago Free Press
The Fair Illinois Committee, a volunteer effort organized to fight a right-wing effort to put an anti-gay marriage amendment referendum on the Illinois election ballot this November, filed challenges in Springfield June 26 to tens of thousands of petition signatures collected by the anti-gay group.
Protect Marriage Illinois had filed petitions containing more than 345,000 signatures in support of the anti-gay referendum with the Illinois State Board of Elections May 8. Since then, Fair Illinois, a coalition organized by Equality Illinois, the American Civil Liberties Union, PFLAG, the Gay Liberation Network, Lambda Legal and others, has used volunteers to go over the petitions and look for errors and signatures that aren’t from registered voters.
Illinois law requires that the Board of Elections certify 283,111 of the signatures as valid in order to put the referendum on the ballot. The referendum, if certified and approved by a majority of voters, would urge the Illinois Legislature to pass an amendment to the Illinois Constitution that would forbid recognition of gay and lesbian marriages, unions and partnerships.
Fair Illinois volunteers scrutinized every signature on the petitions. Reports from volunteers with the effort indicated that tens of thousands of signatures were challenged as invalid, far more than necessary to keep the referendum question off the ballot.
The Board of Elections is expected to take some two months to review and rule on the Fair Illinois challenge, filed legally on behalf of PFLAG activists Char and John Cepak, as plaintiffs, against PMI.
posted by Carlos T Mock at 10:04 AM
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