Another petition bites the dust. Secretary of State Shantel Krebs announced today that the independent redistricting petition submitted by Charles Parkinson four months ago appears to have fallen nearly 2,500 signatures short of qualifying the ballot.
Secretary Krebs counted 33,980 signatures, 1.2% fewer than the 34,394 that Parkinson estimated his team collected. That lower count knocked the redistricting petition’s allowable error rate down almost a full percentage point, from 19.34% to 18.36%. When Secretary Krebs drew her 718-signature sample, she found an error rate of 25.63%. The Secretary thus calculates that Parkinson’s petition contained only 25,272 valid signatures, only 91.1% of the 27,741 needed to qualify for the ballot.
Three petitions remain on the Secretary’s desk: voting by mail, the prescription drug price cap, and medical cannabis. All three are initiated measures, not amendments, so they require 13,871 signatures to qualify for the ballot. Voting-by-mail can afford an error rate of 30.12%; drug price cap, 38.30%; and medical cannabis, 7.22%. The average error rate on the five initiative petitions reviewed so far is 24.33%.
It looks bad for the backers of the demon weed. Weed is bad, it is bad, and Ms. Krebs will not let it be on her ballots.