GMO Labeling Disinformation Campaign May Suffer Defeat in Washington State
Anti-biotech luddites tried to scare the citizens of Washington State into voting for the I-522 initiative that would have mandated labels on foods containing ingredients derived from genetically modified crops, even those crops are as safe or safer than conventional or organic crops. Styled as a "right to know" initiative, the scientifically dishonest proponents of labeling actually hope that confused consumers would mistake them as "warning labels," and thus avoid purchasing foods made from cheaper and more environmentally friendly biotech crops.
All the votes are not yet in—a lot of in Washington State residents vote by mail, but the trend looks promising. As Politico reports:
Washington state's GMO labeling measure appears to be going down in defeat, early results show.
With slightly less than a million votes counted, the current tally on Ballot Initiative 522, which would require the labeling of foods that contain genetically modified organisms, show those opposed leading by about 536,000 (54.8 percent) to 442,000 (45.2 percent). The figures represent about a quarter of the state's 3.9 million registered voters, but not all of the votes have been counted.
The delay in the final vote total is due to the fact that Washington is a mail-in ballot state, and it will count any ballots postmarked by Nov. 5, even if those ballots arrive at the end of the week. As a result, the tally on election night often only reflects about 60 percent of the votes that ultimately will be received, according to Brian Zylstra, a spokesman for Washington's Office of the Secretary of State.
If that holds true in this election, with 997,566 ballots counted on election night, another 665,044 could be in the mail.
Here's hoping that good sense will ultimately prevail among Washington voters and this scientifically ignorant measure fails. It's a pity that the food and farming industries have to waste so much money to counter this egregious anti-biotech propaganda.