July
26, 2006
As of 5 p.m. this afternoon, the Secretary of State's office has unofficially
tallied the number of signatures submitted by the UAW and group of claimant
attorneys challenging certain provisions in the recent workers'
compensation reform legislation, SB 7.
What is the status of validating/invalidating signatures?
All local county boards, except Franklin and Belmont county, have submitted
the results of their signature and petition review. The aggregate results
from all other counties are below (NOTE: THESE NUMBERS ARE UNOFFICIAL
UNTIL THE SECRETARY OF STATE HAS COUNTED THE RESULTS FROM ALL COUNTIES).
The UAW/claimant attorney group has two requirements that must be met
in order for this referendum to be on November's ballot.
**FIGURES UPDATED AS OF TUESDAY, JULY 25, 2006**
REQUIREMENT #1: The total number of VALID signatures that is needed
for the referendum to be on the November ballot = 193,740 (6% of the
last gubernatorial election)
How close are they to obtaining 193,740 valid signatures so far?
(1) Total number of signatures submitted by the UAW/claimant attorney
group = 236,872
(2) Number of signatures found to be valid = 119,531
(3) Number of individual signatures found to be invalid = 112,793
(4) Total number of petitions submitted by the UAW/claimant attorney
group = 14,111
(5) Number of valid petitions = 13,926
(6) Number of petitions (pages with signatures) found invalid = 185
(7) Number of signatures found invalid because the petition was found
invalid = 4,548
(8) Total number of signatures found invalid = 117,341
REQUIREMENT #2: Signatures from at least 44 counties must equal
or exceed 3% of the vote cast in those counties in the last gubernatorial
election are also needed for the referendum to be on the November ballot
How close are they to obtaining enough signatures from 44 counties so
far?
(1) Thus far, this group has only met this 3% threshold in 20 counties.
BUT, there are several counties that are within a few votes shy of the
total number needed to meet this threshold. Therefore, we cannot let
our guard down!
BOTTOM LINE - What do all of these numbers mean?
The UAW/claimant attorney group are more than 74,000 votes shy of the
requirement (193,740) and they need enough signatures in 24 more counties
to fulfill the 44 county requirement stated above. In addition, the
invalidation rate of signatures is nearly 50%.
What happens next?
A letter will be sent notifying the parties directly involved in the
referendum of the official results once the Secretary of State receives
the calculations from the final two counties. The petitioners then have
an additional 10 days to "cure" the defective signatures and
file additional petitions.
What can you do to help?
Unfortunately, this group challenging SB 7 continues to collect signatures!
So, make sure to tell friends, family, coworkers, clients or employees
around the state NOT to sign petitions for the UAW's challenge to SB
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