History of Petition Drive and Blocking Allegations
The proponents submitted about 100,000 signatures to the Massachusetts Secretary of State for the first phase of signature collection. 76,084 of those signatures were determined to be valid, with a requirement that 66,593 must be valid for the initiative to proceed to the next step. The next step was for the Massachusetts State Legislature to take up the measure. They declined to pass it by the first Wednesday in May 2008, meaning that the proponents had to collect an additional 11,099 valid signatures by June 18, 2008. On July 3, it was announced that 15,913 additional certified signatures had been filed, making the measure extremely likely to appear on the ballot.
The Massachusetts Teachers Association who's mailing address is the same as the "Committee for our Communities", admitted in December 2007 that it had made phone calls to people who signed the petition to place the income tax repeal on the ballot, inquiring about whether their signature was valid. The calls were made from a group identifying itself as the "Committee for our Communities".
Read more about this topic: Massachusetts State Income Tax Repeal Initiative
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