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State Officials Certify More Than Enough Signatures to Put Charter School Approval Measure on November Ballot

Jul 26, 2012 | Articles, News

… A measure that would allow for the creation of charter schools in Washington will go before voters Nov. 6, after backers of the plan succeeded in collecting enough signatures to put the issue on the ballot.

Secretary of State Sam Reed says his office has certified the measure, known as Initiative 1240, allowing it to go before voters. Proponents of the effort needed to collect roughly 241,000 signatures. Organizers turned in 357,352 signatures to the state.

State elections officials, in a statement issued this week, said the item had easily qualified, despite organizers’ having worked to collect signatures in a compressed time period. Reed’s office explained its review of the signatures this way: “Of the random sample of 10,915, inspectors found 9,337 were valid, with the rest either invalid or duplicates. The error rate was 16.2 percent, a little ‘cleaner’ than the average of 18 percent.” …