Shane Hamlin, assistant director for the agency’s Elections Division, fills you in on what’s next for Referendum 71 – and what needs to happen for it to get on the Nov. ballot.

Q.) Today sponsors of R-71 turned in enough petition sheets for Elections to begin the process of counting signatures. What happens now?
The petition sheets will be secured in a vault at the State Archives, and at the start of the weekday, Archives staff will begin microfilming the sheets to create electronic copies. This takes about three to four days. After that, the petitions come to the Elections Division, where signatures are counted. If we count a sufficient number of signatures, we move on to verifying them against the statewide voter registration records. 

In order for the referendum to make it on the ballot, we’ll need to determine that R-71 sponsors turned in 120,577 legal Washington voter signatures – with no duplicates. We will check a sample of the signatures, which, depending on the number of signatures submitted,  could be anywhere from 3 percent to 100 percent of the total.

Q.) How soon will we know whether or not R-71 makes it onto the November ballot?
It depends! The timeline can vary greatly – it really all hangs on how many  signatures the sponsors turned in. The fewer the signatures they submit, the more we have to verify.  The verification process could go until the last week of August, which would still allow the counties enough time to prepare their ballots.

Q.) What happens if the Elections Division determines there are not enough signatures?
After a thorough and careful check, if we do determine that there are not enough signatures, the referendum is rejected and the 2009 domestic partnership law (ESSB 5866) will go into effect immediately.

Q.) Can the R-71 sponsors try again to challenge the new domestic partnership law?
Not with a referendum. The only way a law can be changed is by amending or repealing it – which will take either an act of the Legislature or Initiative.

Q.) I want to propose a referendum … how do I go about doing it?
We encourage voters to use their constitutional right and get involved in the law-making process when they feel passionately about an issue.   Any registered voter can use a referendum to demand that a law passed by the Legislature be brought to the voters before it goes into effect. 

Referendum measures can be filed any time after the Legislature has passed a bill and the Governor has signed it. However, in order for the referendum to appear on the next general election ballot, all signature sheets and the minimum number of signatures must be filed within 90 days after the end of the legislative session.

Go to www.secstate.wa.gov/electiosn to find out more about the referendum process.