Referendum 71 Signature Error Rate Drops, Increasing Its Chances of Making It on the Ballot

Washington State election officials report that signature checkers for anti-LGBT Referendum 71 have checked more than 97,000 of 137,689 petition signatures turned in by the sponsors of the referendum, Protect Marriage Washington, who hope to overturn the state's new domestic partnership law that extends to same-sex couples all the rights and benefits of marriage but the name.

Nearly 86,000 signatures have been accepted and almost 11,400 rejected, with the error rate dropping from Thursday's high of 11.97% to 11.68%. The overall rejection rate must not go over 12.4% if Referendum 71 is to go on the ballot.

The latest update showed these totals: 97,287 checked, with 85,920 accepted and 11,367 rejected. The sponsors need 120,577 valid Washington voter signatures.

The rejections so far are broken down as follows: 9,347 people whose registrations not found, 947 whose petition signature did not match the one on file, 1,021 duplicates and 52 cases where checkers have asked that the voter’s home county for an electronic signature that can be compared with the signature on the petition.