The latest signature update for Referendum 71 shows that virtually 130,000 signatures have been reviewed, with well over 114,000 of them being accepted. 

About 4,300 signatures have been counted since Thursday’s update, bringing the cumulative total to 129,996 checked signatures. Of this total, 114,583 have been accepted and 15,413 have been rejected for one reason or another. The overall error rate is now 11.86 percent, a shade above the 11.81 percent reported Thursday. In order to make the November statewide ballot, the referendum’s overall rejection rate must not go over 12.4 percent.

The R-71 sponsors, Protect Marriage Washington, need 120,577 valid Washington voter signatures for the measure to be placed on the ballot. Elections Director Nick Handy has announced that the signature check is expected to be finished by September 1.

And now, the breakdown of the rejections: 12,193 people whose registration were not found, 1,310 whose petition signature did not match the one on file, 1,856 duplicates and 54 examples where checkers have asked the voter’s home county for an electronic signature that can be compared with the signature on the petition.

For those of you following the “third check,” Elections Division staff reviewed Volumes 365-399 on Thursday. In doing so, the staff added 105 “accepted’s” and there are a few names that staff needs signature images from the counties to evaluate. Overall, there have been 1,098 “accepted’s” added to the referendum’s total number of accepted signatures because of the third check. This spreadsheet shows the volume (399, highlighted in yellow) that checkers have reached.  The third check process was started as a way to review the names of petition signers whose names did not appear on the snapshot of the voter registration database that checkers had been using from the start of the checking process. The live version of this database is being used to check those names in question.

The R-71 sponsors are trying to overturn the recently adopted “everything but marriage” law (SB 5688) that expands state rights and responsibilities to state-registered domestic partners so that they equal those granted to married couples.