Well, no.  In response to inquiries, the state Elections Division says state regulations adopted on 2006 do not permit voters to withdraw their initiative and referendum petitions once the petition sheets have been turned over to the state for verification. The analogy is that voters can’t re-call a mail-in ballot because they believe they were misled or lied to by a candidate or campaign.

It’s true that a half-century-old attorney general’s opinion said the Secretary of State has authority to accept withdrawal of signatures, but the Elections Division has chosen to not allow take-backs, on both policy and practicality grounds. There is no state law on the subject; the state attorney general’s office concurs with the Elections Division reading of this issue.

Here is a fuller explanation by Nick Handy, state director of elections:

“The attorney general issued advice in 1956 indicating that the Secretary of State had authority to write regulations authorizing the withdrawal of signatures from an initiative petition. Consistent with the attorney general’s advice (about the agency’s discretion), the Secretary of State has promulgated regulations on this matter in WAC 434-379-008 (2), stating as follows: `Signatures on initiative or referendum petitions submitted to the Secretary may not be removed from the petition or eliminated from the signature count. Letters submitted to the Secretary requesting the removal of ones own signature from a petition must be retained by the Secretary as part of the public record for the petition.’

“Thus the Office of Secretary of State has taken the position that signatures on initiative and referendum petitions may not be removed from petitions after the petitions have been submitted to the office. 

“This rule follows the general policy that a deadline must be established beyond which the number of signatures submitted is fixed.  A voter may not change his or her vote after the deadline for an election even if the voter feels he or she was misled into voting for a particular candidate.  Similarly, the rule has been adopted that a signor of an initiative or referendum petition may not withdraw his or her signature after the petitions have been submitted to the Secretary of State.

“As a practical matter, finding such signatures would be extremely difficult.  A typical initiative sponsor submits over 300,00 signatures on over 16,000 petition sheets.  The signatures randomly appear handwritten on these petition sheets.  Finding and removing individual signatures from these sheets after the deadline for petition submission would be administratively impractical.”