Residents charge petition fraud
By Dan Mac Alpine, Beverly Citizen | February 2, 2006
Beverly resident Leslie Leathersich never signs petitions as a matter of personal principle, so imagine her surprise when a friend asked why she had signed a petition to change the state Constitution and ban same-sex marriage.
"I typically wouldn’t sign anything like that," said Leathersich. "Companies come in on the left or right to get signatures. I have no idea how my name got on that petition. Therefore, how did my name get on something that anyone who knows me knows I would never sign?"
Leathersich joins five other Beverly residents who have filed affidavits saying their signatures were obtained fraudulently on the petition to change the state Constitution and ban same-sex marriage. Roughly 900 Beverly residents signed the petition according to the KnowThyNeighbor.org Web site, which lists all signatories. The group, which favors the right of same-sex couples to marry, is urging all residents to check and see if their name appears on the petition.
Leathersich is the only resident to say she never signed any petition. Others say the petition they signed was for allowing grocery stores to sell beer and wine or say they were told the petition was in favor of same-sex marriage.
"I signed something for allowing dogs to run free in certain areas," said Kim Bolognese, of Beverly, and an affidavit signatory.
Depending on the speaker, the Beverly residents are either part of a campaign to discredit the petition drive or victims of a concerted effort to defraud the people of Massachusetts.
"We’ve called on the Secretary of State and the Attorney General to investigate and take a careful look at how that process works," said Lisa Barstow, spokesman of VoteonMarriage.org, referring to the affidavit campaign questioning the signatures. "Anyone can go on KnowThyNeighbor and say they didn’t sign it."
"I think we have a somewhat naive electorate, which is a good quality," said Manchester-by-the-Sea resident Tom Lang, director of KnowThyNeighbor. "People have to read what they sign, but people shouldn’t be shamed for not having read the petition."
The KnowThyNeighbor site highlights those who have filed an affidavit and provides a copy of the handwritten document along with personal comments.
Beverly residents contacted for this story whose names appear as having signed an affidavit all confirmed they considered their signatures fraudulent.
VoteonMarriage is part of a group, including the Massachusetts Family Institute, that helped sponsor the petition drive that was a first step in changing the state Constitution to specifically deny same-sex couples the right to marry.
The Legislature must vote twice, in successive years, with 50 votes in favor in each vote, for the amendment to go to a general election. Only if voters approve would the state constitution be amended.
Lang struck at the fact VotonMarriage hired an out-of-state firm to gather signatures and charged, in a letter to the editor, the paid staff "duped the Massachusetts electorate in order achieve their mean-spirited and anti-family goals."
Barstow said her coalition did hire Arno Political Consultants to help gather signatures. Barstow wouldn’t say how much they paid the consultants, but said the going rate is $1 to $3 a signature.
Barstow said Arno and its subcontractors gathered only about 25 percent of the 170,000 signatures originally presented.
"Most of the signatures were gathered by grassroots volunteers," said Barstow.
Of the original 170,000 signatures, about 30,000 were rejected by city and town clerks in their reviews and the Secretary of State rejected roughly another 20,000 signatures. The groups only needed about 66,000 approved signatures and had about 123,000.
Barstow said the city and town clerks check all signatures for fraud, however that’s not exactly correct.
"A computer checks the signatures against the registered voter list. We can’t check each signature. We have too many," said Helen Butler in the Beverly City Clerks Office.
The group MassEquality, which favors the right of same-sex couples to marry, last week charged it found another 2,000 fraudulent names in a review of just over 10,000 names on the list.
"It’s very upsetting to have my name associated with such an awful petition," Leathersich said.
"The greater issue is how many signatures are fraudulent."
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