Starting in 2017, WA initiatives will require an additional 13,250 valid signatures to qualify

Begin­ning in 2017, the num­ber of sig­na­tures required to secure a spot on Wash­ing­ton’s statewide bal­lot will be increas­ing to near­ly 260,000, the Sec­re­tary of State’s office announced in an advi­so­ry today,

The increase is a con­se­quence of turnout in the Wash­ing­ton’s 2016 guber­na­to­r­i­al elec­tion. The Wash­ing­ton State Con­sti­tu­tion says that the sig­na­ture require­ment for ini­tia­tives shall cor­re­spond to 8% of the peo­ple who vot­ed in the last elec­tion for gov­er­nor. For ref­er­en­da, the sig­na­ture require­ment is 4%.

“To qual­i­fy for a bal­lot spot, ini­tia­tive spon­sors for the next four years will need at least 259,622 valid sig­na­tures of reg­is­tered Wash­ing­ton vot­ers,” explained Sec­re­tary of State Kim Wyman’s com­mu­ni­ca­tions direc­tor David Ammons. “That is 8 per­cent of the total 2016 vote for gov­er­nor, 3,245,282. The old num­ber was 246,372.”

“For ref­er­en­da, the new require­ment will be 129,811. That is 4 per­cent of the total vote for gov­er­nor and com­pares with the cur­rent 123,186.”

Note that these require­ments are for valid sig­na­tures. To qual­i­fy, a cam­paign must sub­mit addi­tion­al sig­na­tures beyond the min­i­mum num­ber to have a chance of mak­ing it in order to off­set like­ly invalid or dupli­cate sig­na­tures. A cush­ion of at least twen­ty per­cent is need­ed, and more is bet­ter. 20% of 259,622 is 51,924, so future ini­tia­tive cam­paigns will need to be able to gath­er around 312,000 sig­na­tures total in order to qual­i­fy for the 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020 ballots.

The sig­na­ture require­ments are per­cent­ages, so they can fall or rise depend­ing on how many peo­ple are on the vot­er rolls and how many turn out for a guber­na­to­r­i­al elec­tion. How­ev­er, they’ve been ris­ing steadi­ly in four year inter­vals since 2000 due to robust turnout in presidential/gubernatorial years.

Turnout this year was down from 2004, 2008, and 2012, but the absolute num­ber of vot­ers vot­ing went up, so the sig­na­ture require­ments will be higher.

This news won’t make Tim Eyman hap­py, as his busi­ness is qual­i­fy­ing ini­tia­tives, and the high­er sig­na­ture require­ment means an increase in his costs.

But it may not mat­ter. If Eyman does­n’t have his wealthy bene­fac­tors behind him pump­ing cash into his ini­tia­tive fac­to­ry next year — or any year in the future — he won’t be able to mount a sig­na­ture dri­ve anyway.