Because the daily updated signature validation numbers are of ongoing and intense interest for some of us, I will bump this updated diary to the top of the page each afternoon (Pacific time) after the daily results have been released.  All the action will remain below the fold so as to keep the diary profile slender.

Last updated: 4:15 pm on Tuesday, August 25, 2009.  Data are provisional.Referendum 71 voters will be asked to approve or reject the domestic partnership law in November.  Vote “APPROVED” to preserve the new domestic partnership law. Sign up with Washington Families Standing Together (WAFST.org) to help get the word out.

Here are the latest numbers as of 4:15 pm Tuesday, August 25, 2009:

Signatures in Volumes Accepted Rejected % Rejected Registration Not Found Signature Image Pending No Match Duplicate
110,288 97,261 13,027 11.81% 10,580 44 1,089 1,314

Click here to find the link to the spreadsheet showing the breakdown of signatures by bound volume.  About 80% of the raw signatures submitted have been examined so far.  The percent rejected increased slightly from Monday’s value of 11.72% to today’s of 11.81%, and is still below the rate of 12.43% needed for the referendum to fail to qualify.

Last week, David Ammons from the Secretary of State’s office said that the SoS had begun a new, 3rd level of re-rechecking of heretofore rejected signatures

[Some signatures were] rejected because they weren’t found in the copy of the state voter database used for checking signatures.  Because checkers have been working off of the same version of the database that was used to check Initiative 1033 earlier this summer, new voters who registered in July didn’t show up [in the voter database].  As the Elections Division begins a “recent registration check,” about 12 percent of those originally not found are being picked up via the current database that master checkers can access.

Of course there was an obvious problem with using the up-to-date database, and that is that the signature of a petition signer who may have signed before registering to vote could now be considered valid.  This problem hasn’t escaped our team.  Washington Families Standing Together is on the ball.  Check out this document just posted to the Secretary of State’s Referendum 71 Info page. It is from WAFTS’s Chair, Anne Levinson, addressed to Mr. Hamlin of the Secretary of State’s office.

On August 17, 2009 the Secretary of State (OSOS) began using an additional database as part of the signature certification process for Referendum 71.  The OSOS had discovered that the database against which signatures were being checked was current only through June 19, 2009.  Thus, petition signers who had registered after June 10 may have been categorized as ‘not found’ during checks by the initial checkers and then the master checkers.  To remedy this, OSOS added the additional step of having all signatures that had been, and throughout the remainder of the process are determined to be, ‘not found’, re-checked for a third time using this ‘live’ database that includes anyone who has registered to the current point in time.

In initiating this new step in the process, the OSOS disseminated procedures for the staff, including this directive: “The registration date of a voter registration record is no a basis for rejecting a petition signature.”  In light of this, some number of previously rejected signatures have now been accepted, and will continue to be accepted, where the date of voter registration did not fall in the time period from June 19 – July 25.  As you know, RCW 29A.72.130 requires that a person signing a referendum petition must be a legally registered voter in the State of Washington and attest to the fact when he or she signs a petition.

Pursuant to Washington Public Disclosure Act, RCW 42.56, Washington Families Standing Together (“WAFTS”) requests copies of or access to the following documents or categories of documents related to Referendum 71:

(1) A list identifying by volume number, petition number, line number and date of registration, those signatures initially rejected as ‘not found’ and subsequently confirmed as ‘not found’ by a master checker, for which the first two determinations rejecting the signature were overturned upon a re-review of the signature by checkers using the ‘live’ voter registration database, where the date of voter registration for each was prior to June 19, 2009.

(2) A list identifying by volume number, petition number, line number and date of registration, those signatures initially rejected as ‘not found’ and subsequently confirmed as ‘not found’ by a master checker, for which the first two determinations rejecting the signature were overturned upon a re-review of the signature by checkers using the ‘live’ voter registration database, where the date of voter registration for each was on or after July 25, 2009.

You can read the rest here.  Is our side good or what?

Please enjoy this updated “Approve Ref. 71″ video, then pledge to vote APPROVED in November, and ask everyone you know to do so too.


  • Numbers reported are not final until all signatures have been checked.
  • 137,689 raw signatures were submitted.
  • 120,577 validated signatures are needed to qualify the referendum for the ballot.
  • The break point comes when either 17,113 signatures are invalidated or 120,577 signatures are validated.
  • The overall signature invalidation rate the petition needs to stay below to qualify for the ballot is 12.43% (17,112/137,689).
  • Definitions of the various categories can be found at the SoS’s page.

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    Related:

    * Referendum 71 signature validation update: Day 3 & 4

    * Random Numbers

    * The Skinny on DP Dissolution Rates in Washington State

    Referendum 71 voters will be asked to approve or reject the domestic partnership law.


    REFERENDUM 71

    Ballot Title

    Statement of Subject: The legislature passed Engrossed Second Substitute Senate Bill 5688 concerning rights and responsibilities of state-registered domestic partners [and voters have filed a sufficient referendum petition on this bill].

    Concise Description: This bill would expand the rights, responsibilities, and obligations accorded state-registered same-sex and senior domestic partners to be equivalent to those of married spouses, except that a domestic partnership is not a marriage.

    Should this bill be:

    Approved ___

    Rejected ___

    Ballot Measure Summary

    Same-sex couples, or any couple that includes one person age sixty-two or older, may register as a domestic partnership with the state. Registered domestic partnerships are not marriages, and marriage is prohibited except between one man and one woman. This bill would expand the rights, responsibilities, and obligations of registered domestic partners and their families to include all rights, responsibilities, and obligations granted by or imposed by state law on married couples and their families.

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