Our Elections Division reports it has completed its initial count of the signatures submitted last week in support of Initiative 1033, Tim Eyman and Co.’s measure that would cap the growth of revenue for state, county and city general funds.

And the total is … 315,444, far above the minimum of 241,153 needed to qualify for this November’s ballot. According to Elections, the new figure “does not include signatures on petitions that did not contain the full text of the proposed initiative or all of the statutory language required on an initiative petition or otherwise did not comply with the requirements governing the form of the petition.”   

According to an e-mail that Eyman sent right after being notified by Elections, his group’s count of 314,277 announced July 2 didn’t include petition signatures that were sent directly to the Office of Secretary of State.      

Early next week, more than a dozen Elections staffers will start verifying the signatures, using a random sample of 9,542 (about 3 percent). They will compare the sample signatures to the original sigs on those citizens’ original voter registration forms. We expect the process to be completed before July 25. Assuming it passes muster, I-1033 will be the only initiative on the 2009 General Election ballot.

Referendum sponsors, including the R-71 folks who are challenging a new “everything but marriage” domestic partnership law, still are gathering signatures. They have until July 25 to turn in 120,577 valid sigs. The R-71 sponsors say they plan to bring in their signatures by that deadline.