Monday is the beginning of the signature check for Initiative 1107, the last of six initiatives submitted to the Secretary of State’s Elections Division earlier this summer. I-1107 would repeal new taxes on candy, pop, beer and bottled water. The 1107 sig check should be completed later this week.

Last Friday marked the end of an unheralded yet important step in the initiative signature check journey: The last petition sheet for I-1107 (shown above) was scanned by our Imaging Services staff, meaning the scanning work for all of those petition sheets and all of those signatures is now finished.

Before they are reviewed by signature checkers, petition sheets must be copied for official record-keeping.

And just how many petition sheets and sigs are we talking about in this monumental year for initiatives? Nearly 161,000 sheets and about 2.2 million signatures. That is a lot of scanning. (At 52,255 sheets, I-1107 had an unusually large number of petition sheets. ) These figures show that  signature gatherers were especially busy this year, and that Washington citizens are more willing than ever to get involved with our cherished initiative process.