Wash. Senator: Not Enough Signatures

The rate of invalid signatures on a petition to repeal Washington state's expanded domestic-partnership law is leading one lawmaker to think the question might not even appear on the ballot in November.

Washington senator Ed Murray said in a statement on Thursday that the secretary of state's reported 13.3% rate of invalid signatures is probably lower than the actual failure rate. Murray faults the secretary of state's office's day-to-day changes in calculating the figures on its blog.

Given the number of signatures turned in (137,689), those looking to repeal Washington's "everything but marriage" law would need 120,577 signatures validated, or 85.8%. Murray said that while the forces behind the signature drive might feel comfortably within the margins, they shouldn't feel too victorious.

"It’s confusing when one method is used to determine the overall rates and the opposite method is used in the daily reports," he said. "If the secretary of state’s blog had first used the math that it is using now, it would have divided the total they need to verify [120,577] by the total number they will count [137,689] -- and, again, subtracted 1 -- for a maximum invalid rate of 12.4%," he said. "Or, if the secretary of state’s blog were still using the math it began with, the current error rate would be 15.4%, rather than 13.3%."

When asked by Advocate.com in July whether signature authenticity may be a problem with so many volunteers, Larry Stickney of the Washington Values Alliance said he is not too worried with that process. "[The secretary of state's office] will take a sampling, and make that determination," he said. "Usually when you're dealing with churchgoing folks, as we have in times past -- the last time I headed an initiative, we had the highest percentage of validated signatures up to that point -- we expect it to be pretty good."