Wanna Sign Something Little Girl....

Many of the same people who are against same-sex couples getting married are now against a bill that would not allow paid signature gathers to get paid per signature collected. Why do they think this is bad? Well, there is little incentive to gather signatures if you're being paid by the hour. The current practice encourages fraud says the supporters of the bill. It also makes it possible for groups opposing ballot questions to gain almost immediate access to the names and addresses of the people who signed the petitions, providing them an opportunity to persuade signatories to retract their support.

''It's obviously first and foremost a political ploy to hinder our efforts at signature collections," said Kristian Mineau, president of the Massachusetts Family Institute, which is leading the initiative against same-sex marriage

Hmm...if we look back to history we see that there was a problem a couple of years ago. Baywindows reported:

During the course of the campaign, Truth Squad members discovered that signature gatherers-some of whom were hired by MCM-used deceptive methods to get people to sign ``Protection of Marriage" petitions, in some instances leading petition signers to believe they were actually signing an initiative to ban slaughtering horses for human consumption. The allegations of deception were so widespread that late in the signature gathering campaign Atty. Gen. Thomas Reilly issued a press release urging voters to read carefully any petitions carefully before deciding whether or not to sign them, and to contact his office if they suspected they had been victims of fraud.

On the other hand:

Horse defenders thought it was a sure bet when they launched a petition drive to protect horses from being shipped to out-of-state slaughterhouses for use as meat. Save Our Horses spent roughly $160,000 on the drive, hiring a private, Phoenix-based firm to gather signatures and put the feel-good measure on the election ballot.

But shortly after Ballot Access Co. notified her that the company had gathered the necessary number, coordinator Susan Wagner learned that the measure missed the mark of 57,100 statewide signatures needed by nearly 3,000. A far more controversial proposal to ban gay marriage, meanwhile, succeeded with more than 76,000 signatures, also collected by Ballot Access.

Coming soon: Signature collectors in YOUR neighborhood to put discrimination into the Massachusetts Constitution.