Although an initial count of signatures revealed the effort to repeal California’s new law that protects transgender kids in schools didn’t have enough signatures to qualify, it did eke out enough for full recount.
The Advocate reports:
Since the deadline for turning in signatures this past November, the office of California’s secretary of state has been performing a spot-check to determine the validity rate. With the number turned in, the average validity rate needed to qualify for the ballot stands at 81.5%. Were the spot-check to yield a rate higher than that figure, the law would be suspended until after the ballot initiative this coming November. Los Angeles County, the final county being put through the spot-check process, came in with a validity rate of 77.8%, bringing the overall state rate to 77.93%. While this wasn’t a high enough rate to suspend the law and put the measure on the ballot, this did meet the threshold needed to launch a new verification process, this time checking each of the 619,241 signatures received. In the meantime, the law will remain in effect.
Let’s hope that the recount confirms the low validity rate of the initial count – we need to protect transgender students, some of the most vulnerable students in the school population. If it does get to the ballot, we need to fight it tooth and nail.
