The percentage of invalid signatures for Ref. 71 is slowly rising but it appears too slowly to make it over 12.4%. The rate was 10.42% on Tuesday, then just over 10.6% on Wednesday and the rate is now only 10.68% with 50,000 signatures checked. There has only been 263 duplicate signatures so far but that number will certainly rise as the process continues. Unfortunately, without public access to the names on the petitions it is impossible to double check the results of this validation process.
I’ll keep you posted.
Washington Families Standing Together needs phonebank volunteers for Saturday August 15, 2009 from 10am – 5pm at the Equal Rights Washington office, 720 7th Ave, Seattle:
We need volunteers to help us call voters and educate them on the importance of APPROVING Referendum 71 in order to retain the domestic partnership law! There is a lot of confusion right now about this referendum, and we need YOUR HELP to ensure that all WA families are protected! Any time that you are available during these hours is appreciated; please email kate@equalrightswashington.org to sign up for a shift. Also, we have limited resources at the office, so please bring your laptops and cell phones if possible.
More info is here.
UPDATE: The invalid signature rate jumped to 11% today after they verified only 8,000 additional signatures. Very interesting. The invalid rate jumped .3% and if the rate were to increase by that much with every 8,000 votes checked the invalid signature rate would go up an additional 3% from where it is now and would not qualify. But we must assume the “senior-checkers” will come along and knock that rate back down.
Everyone has to remember that the master fixers didn't enter the picture until day SIX. Up until that time junior fixers counted the petition signatures. What happened on day five? The rejected signature count exceeded the amount needed to qualify for the election. In step the master fixers on day six and they change the rejected signature count by a massive 19% after only looking at the already rejected signatures. HONEST, PATRIOTIC people find out about the massive change in rejected signature percent and raise their concerns. Election officials then decide to change the process again by hiding it and counting the rejected signatures another TWO more times on August 10th and 11th. The rejected signature rate falls another 10% on the SAME rejected signatures they looked at already twice before. Rejected signatures have gotten at least FOUR looks, twice by junior fixers and twice by master fixers. Once again HONEST, PATRIOTIC people raise their concerns about the legitimacy of the counting. The secretary of state spokesperson gives a flip and disrespectful answer by saying gay people ain't worth looking at the accepted signatures the same as the rejected ones.