We have been monitoring the number of communications received by Texas Governor Rick Perry regarding the last few executions. He receives both written correspondence and phone calls. Written correspondence includes letters, faxes and emails submitted either through the governor’s website or through outside websites or email lists such as Texas Moratorium Network’s, which uses Democracy in Action to allow people to email the governor. The number of phone calls may be underrepresentative of how many people try to call, since the phone lines are often busy. Also, petitions with multiple signers on each page are not included.
This information was obtained through requests submitted by Scott Cobb under the Texas Public Information Act.
12,201 people wrote Perry opposing the execution of Frances Newton last Sept. Ten people wrote him supporting the execution. Most recently, 2,627 people wrote opposing the execution of Jaime Elizalde on Jan 31. Nobody wrote Perry supporting Elizalde’s execution. For the execution of Marion Dudley on Jan 25, only 141 people communicated their opposition to the execution to Perry’s office and nobody wrote Perry supporting the execution.
Here is a pdf of all the information, broken down into communications from inside Texas, other U.S. states and outside the U.S and including both written correspondence and phone calls.
Below is the same information posted on one of those new web 2.0 spreadsheet sites called Num Sum.