The sponsors of I-912, the “Pricks for Potholes” initiative, turned in 232,000 signatures today; 224,880 are needed to qualify. Over on (un)Sound Politics, our friend Stefan celebrated the event with the headline “No New Gas Tax to make the ballot.” Um… yeah, maybe… but considering this is the same guy who predicted Dino Rossi would win his election contest lawsuit just days before the case was “dismissed with prejudice,” I’d take his prognostication with a grain of salt.
Large numbers of signatures are routinely disqualified, so the Secretary of State generally recommends a cushion of about 20% over the number of signatures required. I-912 sponsors would have to bring in around 40,000 additional signatures by Friday to meet that target.
Considering the fact that there is an organized opposition that will be monitoring the signature verification process, you can be sure that every signature that can be challenged, will be… so at this point I’d say that I-912 is still too close to call. If enough signatures are disqualified to keep I-912 off the ballot, some supporters might be tempted to cry foul, but I’m confident Stefan would never want to dilute the process with double signers, people not registered to vote, and signature mismatches.
We’ll have a better idea of the initiative’s status on Friday, but we likely won’t know if it qualifies for the ballot until mid-August.