Civil Rights Measure Officially Disqualified By Sec. of State

Prop. 104 is 4th Initiative to Lack Required Signatures After Check by Sec. of State & Counties

PHOENIX -- Secretary of State Jan Brewer today officially disqualified Proposition 104, the “Arizona Civil Rights Initiative” as the measure lacked the minimum number of signatures to qualify for the November General Election ballot. The proponents for the Initiative had initially turned in 334,735 petition signatures of which 9,148 were deemed invalid after the verification and processing of petitions by the Secretary of State’s office and county recorders.

On July 30th, the Secretary of State had reported that the Arizona Civil Rights Initiative had 325,587 signatures still eligible (after removing 9,148 signatures), the remaining signatures still needed to be checked by the county recorders. A random sample of 5 percent of signatures was then processed by the county recorders to verify voter registration and petition signatures. That process ultimately removed another 6,532 signatures as being invalid.

“While it is unfortunate that so much time, effort, and taxpayer money is being spent by the counties and my office to verify and check hundreds of thousands of signatures that ultimately do not meet the minimum statutory requirements,” stated Secretary Jan Brewer, “in the end this is a part of the democratic process established here in Arizona.”

Under the Arizona Revised Statutes in 19-121, the Secretary of State removes ineligible signatures and invalid petition sheets, and then the county recorders further verify voter registrations. After concluding the entire verification process on Proposition 104, the Secretary of State determined that the Arizona Civil Rights Initiative petitions final total of 194,961 valid signatures failed to meet the 230,047 minimum signature requirements for a constitutional amendment.

“I am immensely grateful to my staff for the hard work they did in checking over 2.8 million signatures that were submitted as part of the nine citizen initiatives,” stated Sec. Brewer “To be sure, this overall process of checking signatures was handled with absolute fairness and by the book as determined by the Arizona Revised Statutes.”

To date, seven ballot measures have been qualified to be on the November ballot. Three measures have been disqualified. One other citizen initiative is still being verified by the county recorders.

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