Volunteers Needed: Chicago & DuPage to Check/Verify Signatures

[orleans]

this in an email:

"Help Keep a Discriminatory Marriage Referendum off the Illinois Ballot in November

The best way to defeat this hateful amendment is to keep it off the ballot, and we can beat this initiative with the help of volunteers.

On Monday, May 8, the right-wing Illinois Family Institute submitted an estimated 345,199 signatures to the Illinois State Board of Elections in an effort to write discrimination into the Illinois Constitution.

If these signatures are vaild an advisory referendum will be added to the November ballot asking if the General Assembly should amend the Illinois Constitution to declare that "marriage between a man and a woman is the only legal union that shall be valid or recognized in this State."

However, many of these signatures could be invalid under Illinois law. With our allies, we are mobilizing to uphold Illinois election law and challenge invalid and false signatures.

By mid-June we need to check each and every one of the over 300,000 signatures submitted. Experts tell us that our chances are good - the Family Institute needs 83% of their signatures to be valid.

We can definitely win this and keep the amendment off the ballot, but only if we have enough volunteers checking signatures.

If you can't join us this Saturday, contact us and let us know when you can. We need volunteers working all shifts: day, evening & weekend - through mid-June!

We will have a volunteer location on Chicago's north side, and we also need volunteers in DuPage and other counties in Illinois. Any time that you can give us is urgently needed.

Let's show these anti-gay forces that Illinois is a state made up of fair minded and decent people.

Sign up by emailing [e-mail]
or call Equality Illinois at [phone] or [phone]"

[Cadfael]

1. DuPage Update

from an email forward i received this a.m.


> Fair Illinois Volunteer Shifts Now Available in DuPage!
> As many of you know, the Illinois Family Institute turned in petitions
> earlier
> this month to place an advisory referendum on Illinois' November ballot
> declaring marriage between one man and one woman and banning civil
> unions and
> all forms of domestic partnership. The IFI claims to represent
> Christian
> Illinois, and yet their spokesman has called gay and lesbian families
> "an
> infection".
>
> I am writing to ask for your help in defeating this unfair and
> discriminatory
> referendum. Fair Illinois, a group of concerned citizens has been
> organizing the
> volunteer effort to verify all 345,199 signatures and object to those
> that are
> invalid. We believe a large percentage of the signatures collected do
> not comply
> with Illinois elections law and that we can keep this referendum off
> the
> November ballot - but we need your help.
>
> We need a massive number of volunteers between now and mid-June to go
> through
> the 60 thousand petitions and check each and every line.
> We are setting up new volunteer hours at the DuPage County Elections
> Office (421
> N. County Farm Road, Wheaton). Our first shifts will be this Friday
> (the 26th)
> from 8AM-Noon and Noon-4:30PM. Volunteers can sign up by calling
> 773-724-0071 or
> emailing [e-mail]. For more information please visit
> www.fairillinois.org.
>
> We can win. We need your help.
>
> Allie Carter
> Fair Illinois

[orleans]

2. thanks for posting this. n/t