Two more counties reported their random sampling results Monday: San Luis Obispo (validity rate 60.2%) and Yuba (57.2%). (San Luis Obispo County also found another raw signature, bringing the total raw count to 1,137,804.) The overall validity rate is down slightly to 67.48% (was 67.6%, for a projected valid signature count of 767,790, just 555 more than needed to qualify for a full count. (I had been rounding the overall validity rate to three significant digits, but as Six Californias is so close to the threshold I’ll begin reporting it to four significant digits as the Secretary of State does.)

Twelve counties still have to complete their random sampling, which by law they must do by Friday. They are (in order of the number of raw signatures they reported) Los Angeles (311,924 raw signatures), Fresno (38,382), El Dorado (11,649), Humboldt (7,230), Tuolumne (4,732), Nevada (4,322), Lassen (2,066), Glenn (1,910), Mariposa (945), Trinity (779), Inyo (616), and San Benito (350). Los Angeles and Fresno have to check 3% of their signatures, and San Benito has to check all 350; the others have to check 500 (unless they want to check them all).

Given how close to the threshold for a full count Six Californias is, if the smaller counties were hoping Six Californias would either qualify or fail to qualify without their numbers, so they could skip verifying signatures, they might have have to re-think that position. If I were them, and depending on how long it takes their offices to verify a signature, I wouldn’t wait until Friday morning to start verifying.

Updated September 9th: I had a typo in the raw count number in the first paragraph in the original version of this report. I had written 1,137,904 when it was 1,137,804. It is corrected above. The projected valid signature computation was made with the correct value.

–Steve Chessin

President, Californians for Electoral Reform (CfER)

www.cfer.org

The opinions expressed here are my own and not necessarily those of CfER.