R-71 update: Hundreds of signatures move into “accepted” pile after recheck

R-71 update: Hundreds of signatures move into “accepted” pile after recheck

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As Dave Ammons mentioned in his blog post yesterday, the Referendum 71 signature checkers have been doing a “recent registration check” for signatures that had been rejected because they weren’t found in the copy of the state voter database used for checking signatures. Because the checkers have been working off the version of the database used to check the Initiative 1033 sigs earlier this summer, new voters who registered in July and signed a referendum petition sheet didn’t appear in the copy of the database . The “recent registration check” will help find registrations for those petition signers who registered to vote in July.  

The recent registration check started earlier this week. Thursday night at 10 p.m., the checkers had finished doing the recent registration check on the first 160 batches of petitions. In the first 3½ days of the check a total of 443 (or 12.7 percent) of the 3,501 signatures not found on the first check or by a master checker have been moved to the “accepted” category. Another two names were found to be duplicates, and three other names might be added to the “accepted” list if readable signature images can be provided by the county where the signer indicated he/she lives.      

The referendum’s rejection rate for these 160 volumes had been 10.44 percent before the recent registration check began. Now, with the 443 names being transferred to the “accepted” category, the rejection rate for the 160 batches is 9.27 percent.

7 thoughts on “R-71 update: Hundreds of signatures move into “accepted” pile after recheck”

  1. Would you please tell us whether any of these shifts are reflected in the totals posted on the R71 information page at 5:00 today?

  3. So confusing.

    So, as I understand it, only the first 160 batches of signatures are really completely checked. The rest of the signatures that you have on your stats page still have another round of checks to go againt the most recent database?

    Or are the junior checkers and 1st-round master checkers now using an updated database since the discovery was made? In which case the most recent signatures are also really completely checked. I still haven’t seen this question answered.

    I suggest you do what you did a couple of weeks ago: Scrap your numbers, and report only on those signatures that have gone through ALL of the checks. Otherwise, these numbers are meaningless.

    You ran into problems when you were reporting results from the junior checkers but before the master checkers were done with the numbers. Now you’re running into trouble by mixing the 1st round master checked numbers with the 2nd round master checked numbers.

    Thanks, Tony

  4. Hi Tony,

    For security purposes, and to maintain the accuracy of the voter registration rolls, most checkers are not provided password access to the live statewide voter registration database. The master checkers use the live statewide voter registration database to confirm whether a signer registered more recently. There are registrations submitted recently that may not appear in the database being used by most checkers.

    For more details about this see Dave’s post on the topic:
    http://blogs.secstate.wa.gov/FromOurCorner/index.php/2009/08/r-71-thursday-update-50k-and-counting/

    Christina Siderius, Secretary of State’s Office

  6. This interactive site is helpful. I have a question.

    One of the statements quantifies “signatures that have been set aside because there was no voter signature on file ” separately from “names not on the voter list.”

    How does a name get on the voter list without a signature?

  7. One more question:

    Regarding the statement “most checkers are not provided password access to the live statewide voter registration database.” — this would mean, then, that there is a separate database of signature facsimile images.

    As I understand it, the master checkers only check rejected names not accepted names/sigs. If I have this right, that means the accepted names/sigs are processed using a separate database containing electronic signature facsimiles. Correct?

    Can you tell us a little more about the two different signature facsimile databases; for example, how are the signatures transferred from the official statewide database to the one the non-master checkers are using?

    Since a separate database is used for the accepted sigs, how does one know that some sets of sigs aren’t just being compared against themselves (ie, why would we assume the secondary database contains 100% original signatures?) I notice in the video that the signature checker mentioned some sigs look like the sig on the screen looked like an exact copy of the sig on the petition.

    My questions regarding the sig database controls apply to vote-by-mail signature authentication as well.

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