Today’s R-71 data have been release by the Secretary of State’s office.
The total signatures examined has reached 88,191, which is 64.1% of the total petition. To date there have been 10,510 invalid signatures found, for an apparent rejection rate of 11.92%. This rate underestimates the rejection rate for the entire petition because it doesn’t account for the increasing rate of duplicates found as more signatures are examined.
The invalid signatures include 8,822 that were not found in the voting rolls, 867 duplicate signatures, and 821 that did not match the signature on file. There are also 44 signatures “pending” that I’ve ignored. The 867 duplicate signatures found thus far, gives a projected total duplication rate of about 1.90% for the petition.
Using the V2 estimator, the number of valid signatures on the petition is projected to be 120,519 leaving a shortfall of 58 signatures from the 120,577 needed to qualify for the ballot. This projection assumes that the signatures examined so far reflect a random sample of all signatures on the petition. As I discussed yesterday, this isn’t the case. In the last several days, there appear to be an unexplained, systematic increase in the rate at which signers are not found in the voting rolls.
If we correct the apparent rejection rate of 11.92% for duplicate signatures, the total rejection rate for the petition should be about 12.47%.
The extent of uncertainty in the outcome of R-71 can be seen from the results of a Monte Carlo analysis of 100,000 simulated petitions using the rates observed through today. The red bars show the mass of failed petitions and the green bars show the mass of petitions that made the ballot:
In the simulations, the petition qualified 41,520 times and failed 58,480 times, suggesting that, if today’s rates hold, R-71 would have a 41.52% chance of qualifying for the ballot. But, as we have seen for several days, the rejection rates aren’t holding—they have systematically increased.
Finally, here is the big picture over the last couple of weeks. The blue symbols are projected median numbers of valid signatures for the petition and 95% confidence intervals. The red line is the number of signatures needed to qualify for the ballot.
If the rejection rates were constant over time, the blue line would be mostly straight (bouncing around a little). What we actually see is a decline in the projected signatures suggesting the rejection rates are increasing.
Why are the error rates increasing with time? It is hard to know. Yesterday I mentioned the possibility that there could be temporal correlation, so that signatures collected later are being examined later. Dave Ammons (communications director for Secretary of State) suggests it isn’t so. I’m not completely convinced.
Whatever the reason, R-71 has now made the transition from qualifying to failing. Sure…it’s just barely failing, but should the rejection-rate trend continue, it will soon transition to a “safe fail”.
At least until the rate trends reverse….
Update: And then there is this. A substantial number of “not found” signatures are now being located in a more current voter roll. This third phase check has upped the uncertainty….
David Ammons also said today that they are re-re-rechecking the Rejects against a new voter database that catches people who registered in July. So far they were saying that about 12% of formerly rejected signatures were getting put back in the Accepted pile. I wasn’t clear to me if those numbers were reflected in todays report.
Ah, we do have the answer. Good thing you qualified your post with the final sentence.
David Ammons says:
August 20, 2009 at 5:30 PM
…the recent-registration check is underway, and the “rejected” stack doesn’t reflect that.
Yes, Darryl, it looks like the 8,822 that were not found in the voting rolls are going into further review. The SofS office expects that roughly 12% of them will be found to be valid registrants in the most up-to-date voter registration rolls.
I would like to know if any gay people or liberals are rejecting the signatures.
I think the R-71 petition supporters should be allowed to contact the so-called “no match” signers, and obtain affidavits that they really did sign the petition. The election authorities have to do this when a voter’s ballot signature is rejected as a “no match”, and the same protections should apply when a voter signs an initiative or referendum petition.
Richard @ 5,
So you have said.
Is there any basis in the RCW or WAC or case law for doing such a thing for a petition?
@ 5 and 6, somewhere on From Our Corner today, David Ammons said that there is no such provision in the law when it comes to initiatives or referenda.
It seems to me that a simple way of doing this would be to PUBLICLY list the signers and allow anyone to challenge their own signature within so many days.
I suggest an initiative to that end!
Darryl–
There is no basis in RCW or WAC for felons to vote…but they do.
I would think a Liberal minded bloke like you would want to move heaven and earth to make sure as many of those sigs were counted as possible.
NO??
Hmmmmmmmmmmm.
Besides, I really think you should absolutely want R-71 on the ballot so you can prove once and for all the overwhelming Progressiveness of Washington State that you & the other KLOWNS always lay claim to.
Time to prove it!
Darryl @ 6
You have three sources of law here:
State Constitution: Article II, Section 1 — refers to the need for a certain number of “valid signatures of registered voters”
Statutes: RCW 29A.72.150 to RCW 29A.72.240 discusses what is done with petitions. RCW 29A.72.230 states that “the secretary of state shall proceed to verify and canvass the names of the legal voters on the petition”, but does not say anything about the procedure to be used.
RCW 29A.60.165 provides a procedure to deal with apparent signature mismatches on ballot envelopes in elections. The voter must be notified by mail, telephone, or both, and given the chance to verify and update their signature. There is no correlated provision concerning initiative and referendum petitions.
RCW 29A.72.240 allows for a lawsuit in court to review the rejection of an initiative or referendum petition. There is no statutory restriction on evidence that may be presented, so presumably voters could testify or affidavit that they really did sign the petition if their signature was rejected.
State regulations (WAC):
WAC 434-379-020 talks about signature verification standards on petitions, matching them to the signature on file.
WAC 434-261-050 provides a more detailed process to deal with mismatched signatures on ballot envelopes, similar to what RCW 29A.60.165 provides for.
Election officials are RIGGING the election so this anti-gay referendum gets on the ballot. They have changed the process so much to help the anti-gay BIGOTS that it is criminal. Here is a review of how election officials have RIGGED the results to favor this anti-gay referendum.
* Election officials LIED to the media, told them the error rate needs to be lower than 14%. In reality it needs to be lower than 12.43%.
* The problem most recently is that there used to be 4 master checkers allowed on the floor at one time with 3 observers from each side to watch. Now, there are 6 checkers on the floor and spread apart (even though it was promised that no more than 4 would be allowed on the floor at one time) with only 3 observers, making it impossible for the observers to thoroughly watch each of the checkers.
* On day five this referendum was NOT going to make it on the ballot then suddenly master fixers came in and “readjusted” the numbers by more than 19% thereby putting this referendum back in play. Gay people raised concerns about the process and guess what the election officials did? Looked at the same rejected signatures again. And you know what the rejected signature percent went down another 10%. Here we have the same rejected signatures looked at at least FOUR times with FOUR massively different numbers
* The rejected signatures of the first 33,000+ are checked at least FOUR times, twice by junior checkers and twice by master checkers. While the accepted signatures, which accounted for 89% of the signatures, are only counted ONCE.
* Husand and wife checkers, Roger and Valerie gave names to outside people to confirm they signed the petition which is ILLEGAL.
* Rejected signatures are NOW going to get ANOTHER look because according to the secretary of state spokesperson voter registration wasn’t “updated.” Election officials say that 12% of those already rejected will put in the accepted pile.
* David Ammons told people concerned with the lopsided checking of the signatures basically gay people ain’t worth looking at the accepted signatures again. That election officials would only take a look at the already rejected ones.
Fuck those gay-hating bastards.
@10 Pope
So, if I were to read a websi8te and find my name on the R71, could I challenge this?
SJ @ 13
I guess they don’t get the signatures just yet to put on the website, with the restraining order. More information would be useful in situations like these.
@13, no. at least, not according to david ammons.
@Rob
The shift of names from rejected to accepted as the result of the re-re-check of certain signatures against a more up-to-date database is expected to be 936 signatures total. It is not 12% of 8822, because once they discovered the error, they started using the better database. So the potential shift cuts off at the point where they stopped using the old database. Also, the 936 is just a projection based on the initial results. Could be more or could be less. But any shifts will come from a fixed universe of signatures; it will not keep growing as the count continues.
You people are all missing the big story from today. They did a master check of a small sample of names that had been accepted by the junior, less experienced staff. This was not a random sample, so it may not be representative of all the “accepted” names. But of this sample of 226 signatures, they found anywhere from 7% to 15% needed to be shifted to the reject pile. (There is a range because a good number of these are going to be checked further before they are definitively placed in the reject pile.)
Now I am not saying that 7-15% of all the accepted names are actually rejects. This was a selected sample and likely had more problematic signatures than the whole body.
But this exercise clearly the junior checkers make errors when they accept signatures. Yet only the rejects get master-checked; the accepted signatures don’t get master-checked. And they need to be.
If the whole body of “accepted” signatures is impacted by a master check at a rate only 1/10 of what was demonstrated in this sample, that would still be a shift of .7% to 1.5% of 120,000+ signatures. That is more than enough to determine the outcome of the count.
Being able to differentiate between a vote and pettition has presented a chance to conflate the two and extract $upport from some people.
[Deleted — see HA Comment Policy]
[Deleted — see HA Comment Policy
@Richard Pope: Are “legal voter” and “registered voter” synonomous? I can’t find a definition of “legal voter” anywhere, although both Article II of the Constitution and RCW 29A.72 appear to use them synonomously.
@Steven: We agree about this error issue. I’ve written extensively (perhaps obsessively) about it on the SoS’s blog. I think it will be a major issue in court. And this one’s going to be close enough that whoever loses will take it to court.
You cannot take steps to reduce types of errors that would invalidate valid signatures without …
…taking steps to reduce types of errors that would count invalid signatures as valid.
@Steven: my understanding is that they were always using the updated database at the master checker stage, but were using an old database for the initial check–something about privacy issues is what I read on the SoS blog.
So I was pretty surprised to see that the signatures not found initially were checked a third time….
Paul Johns @ 20
Are “legal voter” and “registered voter” synonomous? I can’t find a definition of “legal voter” anywhere, although both Article II of the Constitution and RCW 29A.72 appear to use them synonomously.
134 Wn.2d 377, CEDAR COUNTY COMMITTEE v. MUNRO (1998) — Washington Supreme Court held that a “legal voter” meant a “registered voter”.
The Court pointed out that article VI, section 7 of the state constitution required the legislature to adopt a voter registration law. However, the legislature does not have to require registration, except for people living in cities and towns with over 500 people.
But since state law requires ALL voters to register, the two terms mean the same thing. If rural voters were not required to register, then all eligible rural voters would be legal voters, while only registered urban voters would be legal voters.
@Paul Jones:
I am not sure what issues the pro-R71 people have to take to court. The only complaints from them I have heard are 1) the SoS is going too fast, 2) the SoS was using an old database and 3) certain specific master checkers were not doing a good enough job.
Item 1 is not based on anything other than a suspicion, and it is demonstrably disproven by the number of signatures checked each day.
Item 2 has been addressed and fixed.
For item 3, they re-re-checked 225 signatures from these specific master checkers and a few did move over into the accept pile. It is a minor issue and I doubt they will get anywhere with it. Their rejects have already been reviewed 3 and in some cases 4 times. Do they really think a court will order a 4th/5th review?
The only really big issue out there as far as I can see is the disparity in master checking, which is an issue only for the anti-71 people. This is not based on suspicion and is not limited to any particular checker. It is a systemic bias. It is manifestly unfair and probably unconstitutional under Bush v. Gore. And since today’s sample check actually demonstrates that you can have junior checker error in accepting signatures, I don’t see how a court could possibly refuse an order for a complete master check of all accepted signatures.
I hope the sumbitch falls exactly 1 signature short so I can claim my refusal to sign it killed it.
But Roger, I refused to sign it too.
Just to clarify: by “gay-hating bastards” I meant the petition sponsors.
AND re: Cynical @9
We don’t want the waste and expense of a frivlous referendum on the legislation that our legally elected representatives already passed.