CA: Signature counts show marriage measure on track for ballot

Link: The Bay Area Reporter Online

Excerpt:

Backers of a measure that would amend California's constitution to ban same-sex marriage appear to be well on track to turning in the number of signatures required to get their proposal on the ballot in November.

According to data from the Secretary of State's office, county election officials around the state have done a raw count of about 934,774 signatures. The data does not yet include counts for only a handful of counties. The raw count does not include verification of the signatures, which is continuing and is expected to take weeks.

Supporters of the Limit on Marriage measure need to turn in 694,354 verified signatures, or 8 percent of the votes cast in the last governor's race, to make it onto the ballot.

"They claim they turned in over 1.1 million signatures," said Geoff Kors, executive director of Equality California, the statewide LGBT group leading the effort to defeat the amendment. "Based on what we've seen so far, we have to assume that's the number they turned in."

[...]

"The community needs to be prepared to really get engaged at a level we've never been engaged before," Kors said. However, "this is a campaign we can win. We have an opportunity, especially if we have a victory in court, to keep full equality in California, but it's going to take us volunteering more hours and giving more money than we've ever done before."

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[jw]