The Secretary of State announced today that they have a raw count of 137, 689 signatures on the R-71 petition. 120,557 valid signatures are needed to qualify referendum 71 for the ballot. Historically 18% of signatures are invalid for various reasons. The cushion for R-71 is 14.2 %, so we are still in the too close to call range. Because the margin is so close, the Secretary of State’s office will conduct a line by line review of the petition and will compare every signature against the voting record. If a signature does not match the voting record it will be disqualified. If there are duplicate signatures the duplicates will be removed.
Meanwhile confusion about referendum 71 remains rampant as is evident in comments like these on the Seattle PI’s article about the petition. We must begin our campaign now as if Referendum 71 will qualify for the ballot. We have nothing to lose by educating voters now that we must vote to Approve Referendum 71 to preserve domestic partnerships . News articles and other local media outlets have not been adequately explaining how referendum 71 will function, so it is our responsibility as concerned citizens to educate our friends, neighbors, and strangers. Use every resource you have. Change your signature line in your e-mail account, change your voice mail, download an image to use on social networking sites like twitter and facebook from WAFST, print off a sign and put it in your window at work or home, write a song and sing it on the corner and raise some money for the campaign…. I think you get the idea.
