Raw count for referendum 71 is 137,689

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.

What next for Referendum 71?

The Secretary of State’s office announced on Tuesday through their blog that they will conduct a complete verification of the entire petition rather than a 3 % sampling. While I think it is fantastic that every single signature will be scrutinized, it could be several weeks before we know the results.

It does not hurt to start thinking about the future. What if Referendum 71 does qualify for the ballot? What next? We need to switch our thinking from decline to sign to Approve Referendum 71, Preserve the Domestic Partnership Law. That’s right, Approve. This is how the referendum will look if it makes the ballot in November:

Video of R71 petiton gatherer and his lies

Referendum 71 has absolutely nothing to do with same-sex marriage equality. This man is blatantly lying about his intentions.

Fraud and intimidation from referendum 71 petition gatherers?

People are innocent until proven guilty in this country, but there is certainly enough evidence that Dan Ricca is a suspicious individual whose activities should be monitored extraordinarily closely. If there is even a slight chance the Dan Ricca the Chronicle encountered is the same Dan Ricca accused of fraud and forgery, I demand the Secretary of State validate every single signature turned in on Saturday.

Referendum 71 Decline to Sign

With only 8 days left, what you can do to protect equality in Washington