Error Rate Increasing On Referendum 71

Washington state auditors report that the percentage of bad signatures on the petition drive to repeal domestic partners legislation is increasing.

"Overall, 23,457 signatures have been processed, with a cumulative error rate of 13.31 percent. Sponsors need to get 120,577 of their signatures declared valid in order to secure a ballot spot. They turned in 137,689 signatures back on July 25. That is 14.2 percent above the bare minimum. With their 17,112 extra signatures, they could sustain and overall error rate of 12.42 percent," secretary of state spokesman Dave Ammons said in an e-mail. Ammons said the R-71 signature check should be completed by Aug. 17.

Many of the names have been rejected because they are not registered voters.