I think this is a really interesting case - and a hard one. I don't think that signing a ballot initiative is the same as voting. It's an indicator about how you're likely to vote, but you can change your mind again and again until you actually vote.

That this type of information was never posted widely before is similar to the 'privacy through obscurity' discussions. In the past we've had more privacy because most of our personal information was filed away in filing cabinets and there was no easy way to get it all. Now it's all in a database, and can be sliced and diced in almost any way possible.

Some states view this information as public record information, and for those states that do, then this information should be available. I'm not sure what Washington state does although it looks like at one time these records were considered to be public records. Scroll down to almost the bottom of the page. wei.secstate.wa.gov/osos/en/...ions.aspx

Eugene Volokh was quoted in the article - he's a First Amendment professor at UCLA. He says: As Eugene Volokh, a professor specializing in First Amendment issues at the
University of California, Los Angeles, law school, put it, "Now, public
access really is public access."

Mr. Volokh said that the "talk of retaliation" had added complexity to the
Washington case and raised the question of whether, if the names are
disclosed, "you're really not going to get an accurate measure of public
sentiment" because people will become reluctant to sign petitions. He said
confrontation had been a theme in other gay rights campaigns, including in
California last year with Proposition 8, whose passage outlawed same-sex
marriage there.
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For me, that's where the issue is. If the records are made public, how much of a chilling effect do you create, and should the records be kept private for that reason alone.