Brad Shannon:
The Politics Blog

Brad Shannon maintains this blog. He is political editor at The Olympian and can be reached at 360-753-1688 or bshannon@theolympian.com.

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Validity rate very high so far on R-71 signatures

• Published August 04, 2009

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Time will tell, as they say, before anyone declares Referendum 71 fit for the Nov. 3 ballot. But after two days of checking signatures, state elections officials are reporting that invalid signatures are running about 12.3 percent of the total.

If this keeps up, R-71 would qualify for the ballot. Sponsors of the measure to put this year's "everything but marriage" domestic partnership bill up for a public vote turned in 137,689 signatures � a shave more than 14 percent above the legal minimum. Typically the invalidity rate is closer to 18 percent, and some rates have been as high as 28 percent.

Tim Eyman's I-1033 was unusually low this year with a rate close to 12 percent.

The checking of R-71 signatures is slow. It could take all of the month of August to complete, according to David Ammons of the Office of the Secretary of State. The plan is to check every single signature for validity.

In the meantime, terms of Senate Bill 5688 are put on hold � until the signature count falls short or voters weigh in. SB 5688 added a third round of rights to the Washington domestic partnership law, which provides about 450 state-level rights to both same-sex couples and opposite-sex couples that have at least one partner age 62 or older. The new rights include pension and inheritance rights.

If SB 5688 takes effect, it would put same sex couples on the same legal footing as same-sex couples in Oregon and California, according to its supporters.

Here is what Ammons said last night in an email:

FYI: State Election workers, on the second day of checking signatures for Referendum 71, have now processed over 11,000 names, and the campaign's error rate continues at a low 12.31 percent level. As of close of business Monday, 11,502 signatures have been checked, and 10,087 have been accepted and 1,415 have been rejected, mostly because the person does not show up on the voter rolls. Teresa Glidden, supervisor of the initiatives and referendum desk, notes that the error rate will vary somewhat from day to day. The petitions are checked in no particular order and a future batch may have a better or worse error rate. The important number to remember is that referendum sponsors need 120,577 valid signatures to earn a place on the November ballot. That is equal to 4 percent of the total vote for governor last fall. Sponsors submitted 137,689 signatures on July 25.