The Fight for the Ballot Box
A legislative attempt to curb 'professional petition pushers' aims to ensure only legal voters influence state law.
Referendum Measure Number Three is an amendment to the initiative and referendum law, passed by the last legislature as a means of ending the fraudulent signing of initiative and referendum petitions. In 1914, checking the 'seven sisters' petitions revealed thousands of forged signatures by foreigners, unqualified voters, and minors. In 1913, it became evident that professional circulators would pad and fake rolls. While the legislature banned paid circulators, paid organizers simply switched to voluntary solicitors who were effectively still paid per name. To restore the right of initiative and referendum to the legal voters, the 1915 legislature enacted this measure. It requires petitions to be filed with registration officers, mandates office hours on Friday and Saturday evenings for signing, and ensures that when city registration books go to precincts, the petitions accompany them so voters may sign in their home precinct. This provision was suggested by representatives of the working classes.
“The plan of legislation by popular petition, once organized in the hands of these professionals, was such an apparent and fraudulent farce.”
This 1916 debate reflects a recurring tension in Washington politics regarding direct democracy: balancing accessibility for the working class against safeguards against professional influence and fraud. Modern debates over signature gathering for ballot initiatives remain a direct evolution of these early 20th-century civic architecture reforms.
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