"Application of the Term of Person" deemed insufficient

Proposed initiative falls 3,859 signatures short

Denver, August 29, 2012 - Today, Secretary of State Scott Gessler announced that the proposed ballot measure "Application of the term of person" fell short of the required number of signatures.

Proponents of Initiative 46 "Application of the term of person" submitted 106,119 signatures to the Secretary of State’s office on August 6. Staff immediately began verifying a random sample of the signatures. The results are as follows:

Random Sample Summary:

• Total number of qualified signatures submitted: 106,119
• 5% of qualified signatures submitted (random sample): 5,306
• Total number of entries accepted (valid) from random sample: 4,290
• Total number of entries rejected (invalid) from random sample: 1,016
• Number of projected valid signatures from random sample: 85,800

Because the percentage of presumed valid signatures fell between 90% and 110%, the office performed a line-by-line analysis of every signature submitted. The results are as follows:

Line-by-Line Summary:

• Total number of qualified signatures submitted: 106,119
• Total number of entries rejected (invalid): 23,873
• Total number of accepted entries necessary for placement on ballot: 86,105
• Total valid signatures: 82,246

As part of the verification process, signature checkers misplaced a petition section containing 20 signatures and could not locate it. Even though the office could not verify the signatures, they were accepted as valid and added to the final tally of valid signatures.

The measure will not appear on the November ballot.