(The Center Square) – Let’s Go Washington signature gatherers continue to face harassment – and worse – including a hit-and-run of an innocent bystander outside a Fred Meyer in Tacoma on Thursday.
LGW has launched two new initiatives for the 2026 legislative session. One aims to reverse recent amendments to the LGW-sponsored Parents’ Bill of Rights initiative, and the other seeks to ban transgender girls from participating in girls’ sports. The organization is currently gathering signatures for both measures.
A young woman “ripped signature sheets out of a gatherer’s hands, stole petitions and proceeded to hit an innocent bystander with her car as she fled the scene. While the police were on site gathering information about the hit and run, an individual destroyed signs and petitions at the table of the signature gatherer,” LGW spokesperson Hallie Balch emailed The Center Square.
“We have so many more incidents than what we have been posting on our Twitter [now known as X], which is troubling,” Balch told The Center Square during a Friday interview.
She explained that after the woman ripped petitions from the signature gatherer’s hands, she ran to her car.
“And as she was leaving, driving quickly out of the parking lot, she hit somebody with her car, and I guess they weren’t seriously harmed, but they were hurt, and while the police were there taking the report of what happened, another person came up and destroyed the signs and some personal belongings of the signature gatherer,” Balch continued.
The woman’s arrest was captured on video and posted on X. Balch said LGW has received more than two dozen reports this week of signature gatherers being harassed and intimidated and having petitions stolen or damaged. At least two people have been arrested.
According to Balch, LGW is convinced the attacks are coordinated.
“There’s certainly, like, Reddit threads and chat boards and Facebook groups where people are saying, like, go to this place and tell them that you don’t agree with them and that they’re wrong,” she said. “So we’ve definitely seen that they’re coordinating amongst themselves. I don’t know if a certain organization is putting out the information, but regardless, it needs to stop. It’s gone too far.”
The Center Square spoke with Rep. Chris Corry, R-Yakima, about the ongoing attacks.
“It’s hugely problematic when our initiative process is under attack, especially in light of everything that’s gone on in our country in the past two weeks, from Charlie Kirk’s assassination to the attempted assassination of ICE agents in Texas,” he said. “It is incumbent on our political leadership here in Washington, both Republican and Democrat, to denounce this, and I can safely say that as Republicans, we’ve been denouncing it very publicly and calling on our Democrat colleagues to do the same.”
Corry blames Democrats for creating the “permissive structure” for the ongoing attacks.
“This really started last year with Washington Democrats, as well as some of their union accomplices, during the last petition gathering. They were promoting a snitch line and encouraging people to interfere with petition gatherers, as well as some unions were helping pay and fund that, and that sets up the permission structure,” he said. “Washington Democrats, their leadership, whether it’s elected or political leadership, if they’re not willing to go out publicly, loudly, repeatedly, denouncing these acts, and then reaffirming their commitment to constitutionally protected signature gathering, I think that they’re responsible for the effects, right?”
The office of Gov. Bob Ferguson responded to a request for comment after initial publication of this story.
“There is no place for political violence in our democracy. We would encourage anyone experiencing harassment or violence to report it to law enforcement,” Communications Director Brionna Aho emailed The Center Square.
Washington Secretary of State Director of External Affairs Charlie Boisner told The Center Square on Tuesday, following news of the first few incidents involving signature gatherers, that Washington has laws to protect voters’ rights and the signature-gathering process.
“Any type of interference with that process is a gross misdemeanor, and so we firmly stand by the fact and truly believe that all voters must be able to take part in that democratic process without fear of intimidation or disenfranchisement,” Boisner said.
