Today, the State of Washington becomes the first state in the history of the United States to pass a law supporting the equality of same-sex partners by popular vote. [more inside]
posted by Blazecock Pileon on Dec 3, 2009 - 73 comments

Tim Kreider, known to MeFi for his cartoons and essays is now regularly contributing to the Happy Days blog at NYT. His latest essay The Referendum has what you'd expect of a cartoonist, mastery of the one and two liner and getting to a relevant point quickly.
posted by a robot made out of meat on Sep 20, 2009 - 25 comments

In September of 2004, a Superior Court in Washington state ruled the state's 1998 "Defense of Marriage" act unconstitutional, a ruling which would have allowed the state to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. In 2006, the state Supreme Court issued in an opinion in Andersen v. King County overturning the lower court's ruling, noting "that our decision [pdf] is not based on an independent determination of what we believe the law should be." The legislature, in response, created the state-registered domestic partnership in 2007, expanding many (but not all) marriage-related rights to same-sex couples. Last month, a new law expanded the partnership to cover the remaining rights, creating an "all-but-marriage" partnership.

This year, the Washington Values Alliance has filed Referendum 71, which would put this expansion to a ballot vote. The referendum will need 120,000 signatures to make it to the ballot. WhoSigned.org intends to make these signatures searchable. Predictably, this is creating some controversy. [more inside]
posted by 0xFCAF on Jun 2, 2009 - 114 comments

Just ahead of a re-election referendum in Venezuela (scheduled for February 15), The Chávez Administration at 10 Years: The Economy and Social Indicators [PDF][Via]
posted by Rykey on Feb 10, 2009 - 26 comments

Celebrations are being held in Australia's capital city Canberra today, to mark 40 years since the 1967 'YES' referendum which gave Aboriginal people the right to be counted in the census. This is the story of that referendum. [more inside]
posted by Effigy2000 on May 26, 2007 - 43 comments

Transnistria aka Pridnestrovie is about to hold a referendum on joining Russia. This seems to be a new method for traditional Russian imperialism. South Ossetia and Abakhazia may have their own referenda. Is this a lesson in democracy learned by Russia? Is terrorism a necessary part of the process? Previous MeFi Transnistria mention.
posted by CCBC on Sep 12, 2006 - 9 comments

As Brazil Votes to Ban Guns, NRA Joins the Fight. Today an estimated 122 million Brazilians will vote in a national referendum on whether to ban the sale of guns and ammunition to private citizens.
posted by furtive on Oct 23, 2005 - 89 comments

It's exactly one week to The Referendum. Will there be a Europe this year or won't there? The European Union was more France's project than anyone else's; if the French suddenly say Non there's going to be lots of polyglot arm-waving and excitement. The media are all a-twitter, all the European ministers are breathing heavily, Libération, in the person of Jean Baudrillard, sees state fascism approaching (but then Libération always sees fascism approaching, it's their gig.) My magic 8 ball points to Oui. Oh wait, it changed its mind, now it says "reply hazy, ask again later."
posted by jfuller on May 22, 2005 - 30 comments

Oregon Measure 23 Oregon's single-payer-health-care referendum: Sanity in the face of returning double-digit annual cost increases (after an HMO-induced respite), or a tax-and-spend, job-destroying nightmare which even the public-employee unions (not well-known supporters of any for-profit system) oppose?
posted by MattD on Oct 30, 2002 - 38 comments

Want to cut taxes? Eliminate libraries. NY Times story (yeah, yeah, reg required, sorry) talks about a ballot initiative in Stevens County, Washington that may totally eliminate its libraries. (more inside...)
posted by PeteyStock on Aug 20, 2002 - 67 comments

Students for Suicide Pills? On October 12th, 1984, 1900+ students turned out to vote on a referendum asking that their university's Health Services be allowed to offer cyanide pills in the event of nuclear war.

57% of students said they wanted it.
posted by Fat Elvis on Sep 4, 2001 - 11 comments

Should single women lose the right to have babies through in-vitro fertilization?
posted by nonharmful on Jun 18, 2001 - 15 comments