Circulators Outline Challenge to Protect Marriage Petitions

In an email received over the weekend, David Smith, Project Director of the Protect Marriage advisory referendum initiative outline the status of petition drive.

The petitions were filed in a timely manner.

Then, the State Board of Elections sent samples to each election jurisdiction for verification purposes. The results, as Smith put it,

…the random sample signature verification conducted by the election authorities… determined that the petition submitted projects to have 258,869 valid signatures.

This number is approximately 91.4% of the number which would be required to have the question placed on the ballot at the November, 2006 general election, as we all know by now to be 283,111. We needed to reach 95%.

That sounds like bad news. And it certainly would be better had a couple more percentage points of the signatures passed muster of the county clerks and election commissioners.

But, the

good news in that the margin by which we fell short is small – meaning we have only 3.6% to make up (about 11,000 signatures). We are fairly confident that there are enough signatures that can be rehabilitated to make up this difference especially if you factor in the mistakes that were observed during the Random Sampling process.

Attached to the email was the summary report prepared by the State Board of Elections. It notes that, of signatures gathered in Chicago, less than 37% were considered valid.

Libertarian Party scuttlebutt has it that one should expect about 50% of Chicago signatures to be invalid, so 37% is far below that guideline. Of course, Chicago is known to be the most “gay friendly” part of Illinois.

In McHenry County, 86.8% of the signatures were considered valid. A sample of almost 10% or 735 signatures were sent to the McHenry County Clerk’s office for verification.

Here are the findings on the State Board of Elections report:

91.8% valid (672)

Of those considered invalid,

7.24% or 53 were unregistered the signature did not match the clerk’s records in 3 cases

in 4 cases, either the signature or the address could not be read.

What you can do, according to Smith:

Keep praying – When Peter (LaBarbera) and I were talking to Mike Lavelle (our attorney) about these results this afternoon, Mike recognized the fact that we’ve got some good prayer warriors (he was very encouraged by the results) – so don’t stop now – let’s keep tugging on our Heavenly Father’s robe asking Him for His continued blessing.

Lavelle used to head of the Chicago Election Commission. He is a conservative Democrat who won the case for State Rep. Penny Pullen in which the Illinois Supreme Court ruled that the voter's intention counted. Most readers will know that as the "hanging chad" case.

Also at McHenry County Blog, you may find Paul Green's analysis of this spring's voter turnout and a full copy of 8th congressional district "Moderate Party" candidate Bill Scheurer's press release about his suit against various Democrats.