With both sides of the issue watching them like hawks, the signature checkers for Referendum 71 continue to work diligently and carefully through the pile of petitions. That is especially the case when it comes check the signatures of signers with ethnic names.  

We recently received a letter from a Russian-American who said he “learned that many  Russian and Ukrainian signatures are being rejected.” In his reply, Assistant Elections Director Shane Hamlin wrote,

“…signature checking staff ARE aware of the need to give extra attention to ethnic names – Russian, Eastern European and Asian.  We know that petition signers with these names will often, out of cultural practice, sign giving their last name first.  If a matching registration cannot be found using the first and last names as these appear on the petition, the checker knows they may need to invert the two and keep searching.  If a match still cannot be found, checkers can seek a second opinion from a more senior checker.

It is important to note that any signature that is rejected because we can’t find it is reviewed TWO more times by senior, more experienced checker. The second check on this category of rejected signatures is done by a more experience checker, referred to as a master checker.  These master checkers will use more sophisticated search techniques and spend more time looking for matches (including trying variations on the spelling of the name – in case letters are being misread). 

The third check for this category of rejected signatures occurs as part of what we call a “Recent Registration Check.”  In this check, we search the “live” state voter registration database for the signatures rejected because a registration could not be found in the copy of the state voter registration database.  We do this because we know it is possible that some people who signed the petition in late June or July may have also registered to vote at the same time.  These “recent registrations” are not in the copy of the data being used for the regular check.   Again, staff doing this check know to invert ethnic names and try spelling variations with difficult to read hand writing.

The good news is that we are finding a number of valid signatures in this recent registration check, including Russian and Ukrainian.  I do not have the exact number of found in this check, but I know we are finding them – if they are a legally registered voter and we can match the signature.”