From Times reporter Janet Tu:

It’s a little lonely in the media room at the Holiday Inn in Everett, where the Reject Referendum 71 campaign is holding its election night party.

That’s because it’s down a long corridor from where the party is actually being held.

The party is by invitation only “because of ongoing harassment and intimidation efforts directed toward Reject R-71 supporters,” campaign manager Larry Stickney said in a news release.

Media are being placed in a separate room down the hall.

The "media room."

Stickney — wearing a suit and a red-white-and-blue tie — again emphasized his concern with harassment as he spoke to three private security guards at the door to the party tonight. The guards were checking that all who entered were wearing name tags.

People were still setting up, carrying large Reject 71 signs down the hall. Inside the party room (as seen from the door, which was later shut tight), local TV news was running on one large screen, and a children’s choir — dressed in white shirts with red vests — were singing “God Bless America.”

Stickney said his concern with media mingling with party-goers is that people’s names will get into the news and they could be subject to harassment. He says one woman who was at a Reject 71 rally and was featured in the news ended up with her name on a Web site run by someone not supportive of their effort.