WhoSigned.org has filed it's official public records request for the Referendum 71 petition with the Secretary of State's office in Washington State. Receipt of the request was acknowledged by public records staff at the Secretary of State's office earlier today and we look forward to working with them and our partners KnowThyNeighbor.org in making the names broadly accessible online.
An eleventh hour push by unregistered and unregulated paid signature gatherers resulted in a rash of complaints from voters claiming they'd been misled into signing this hurtful petition.
With no avenue for voters to remove their signatures from the petition or to correct the official public record, Washington voters need to be diligent in reading petitions they are presented, questioning signature gatherers, and understanding the impact the petition will have before giving their signature. WhoSigned.org and KnowThyNeighbor.org will provide a way for misled Ref. 71 petition signers to tell their stories and correct the public record.
While most recent estimates place the number of signatures gathered by petitioners at 138,000, an accurate count of submitted signatures won't be forthcoming until all petition sheets have been scanned by workers in the Elections Division later this week. Once that's completed and staffers have an accurate submitted signature count the arduous task of validating the petition's signatures will begin.
With such a small cushion over the 120,577 valid signature target, it's very likely that 100% of the submitted signatures will need to be verified. With a "full check" it's expected to be several weeks before we know whether Referendum 71 will be on the ballot in November.