Interfering with signature-gathering for WA initiatives is on the rise. It's also illegal

Andre Scott was gathering signatures outside the Covington WalMart on Sept. 24 when, he says, an employee on break came up to him.

“He just seemed like a normal person,” Scott said. “He asked if he could sign the initiatives.”

Scott was on the clock. A paid signature-gatherer from Texas, he’s part of a campaign to get two initiatives sent to state lawmakers — one giving parents rights to access materials like mental health counseling records about their children, and the other requiring that schools verify girls in sports aren’t transgender. Scott has two daughters.

“Me being in Texas, it doesn't affect me or my family, but it does affect the people in the state of Washington, and there aren't enough circulators out there,” Scott said. “I've got a little bit more passion behind the issue than the money.”

RELATED: Heywood you sign this? Let's Go WA is working on two new initiatives

The employee asked if he could sign the initiatives, so Scott handed him the deck. Then, he says, the man reached down, grabbed another deck, and took off running with both. Scott gave chase.

“When I got around the corner, I caught him. He was bent over a trash can… trying to rip everything up,” Scott said.

Incidents involving signature-gatherers have become increasingly frequent as the group Let’s Go Washington, backed by hedge fund manager Brian Heywood, gears up its second effort to get conservative policies passed in majority-Democratic Washington state.

In 2024, Let’s Go Washington and its phalanx of signature-gatherers got bills on police chases and income taxes signed into law by Democrats, and persuaded voters to pass a statewide initiative defending natural gas. Three of their other initiatives related to taxes and greenhouse gas emissions were rejected by the electorate.

This year, the signature-gatherers have been targeted far more often, Heywood said.

"We've had probably 1,000 signatures stolen by individuals," Heywood told KUOW, adding that other people have come up and yelled at people signing the initiatives.

"It's the same as if someone were standing there at a ballot box as people were getting ready to turn in their ballot, and there was someone there yelling at them or telling them that they were bad people for voting," Heywood said. "If you're trying to turn your ballot in and someone came up to you and grabbed your ballot and shredded it right there in front of you, that wouldn't be acceptable."

There have been 31 incidents since they started gathering on Sept. 21, a campaign staffer told KUOW via email, resulting in 19 police reports including “multiple assaults.”

RELATED: New WA initiatives seek to undo rewrite of parental rights law, block trans girls in sports

Heywood has posted on X that in Federal Way, someone drove by in a car and threw “red liquid” on signature pages, and in Yakima, a man told a signature-gatherer he was going home to grab a gun.

The man who allegedly took around 160 signatures from Scott on Sept. 24 was charged with theft and malicious mischief, Covington’s police chief told KUOW.

Democratic state leaders such as Attorney General Nick Brown have condemned these incidents and encouraged anyone who witnesses them to report them to local law enforcement. Secretary of State Steve Hobbs called them “voter suppression” in a video posted on social media on Friday.

“Under Washington law, it is a gross misdemeanor to interfere with the right of any voter to sign or not to sign an initiative or referendum petition,” Hobbs said.

Heywood held a press conference in Tacoma on Tuesday with Pierce County Sheriff Keith Swank.

Heywood has accused the opposition campaign — Washington Families for Freedom, whose funders include the state teachers’ union and trans rights advocacy group the Gender Justice League — of encouraging these attacks via a tool on their website where visitors can “Report Signature Gathering.”

Danni Askini, co-chair of the campaign, condemned violence against signature-gatherers in a Sept. 29 press release about President Trump and his “agenda of erasing trans people from public life.”

“These attacks harm our communities and go against everything that our campaign stands for. The baseless insinuation from Brian Heywood that we have anything to do with these violent acts is offensive,” Askini said in a statement. “Organizations within our coalition, like Gender Justice League, have provided support services to victims of violence and assault for over a decade. Trans people sadly know all too well about violence in our state and have also experienced a major increase in hate crimes and attacks.”

Askini said that “decline to sign campaigns” are also constitutionally protected free speech and were run against Heywood’s first set of initiatives in 2023, and that Washington Families for Freedom will run theirs “in a way that does not interfere with the signature gathering process and respects the rights of all Washingtonians to engage in the political process.”

Heywood said he welcomes an opposition campaign.

"I strongly, strongly support the rights of someone to go out there and do their own petition and gather signatures and tell people how terribly wrong that I might — or misguided I might be," Heywood said. "Whether you agree with me or not, you should be concerned when people feel like they have a right to come up and intimidate the people that are potentially signing an initiative. They're standing right there and sort of yelling at them and calling them names and calling them bigots."

Let's Go Washington needs to collect nearly 309,000 signatures by Jan. 2, 2026, to get lawmakers to consider passing its proposals into law or putting them before voters.

A previous version of this story incorrectly stated Rep. Travis Couture was at the Let's Go Washington press conference, based on a press release stating he'd be in attendance.