I don’t like to stack posts on top of each other, so I’ll keep this short: as of this Tuesday evening, the Board of Elections has certified that 53,566 of the 60,266 signatures counted so far by the BOE on the referendum petition for Congressional districts are valid, leaving 5,456 to be counted. Of those, 2,170 or more need to be acceptable for the referendum to qualify. While the rejection rate has been higher on this petition than on the other two MDPetitions.com has sponsored over the last two years, it still should come out in the range of 58,000 valid signatures and that would be enough to place the referendum on the ballot.
Of course, it’s likely the validity of many signatures will be challenged by those same Democrats who came up with one of the most gerrymandered schemes in the country, one designed to shortchange both Republicans and minorities while protecting their incumbents. If the petition is beaten back, it will be up to the GOP to make the point to affected communities that the Maryland Democratic Party is the sole reason that they are being hosed.
Updates will follow.
So is the petition in support of the gerried district or against it?
The petition is to place Senate Bill 1 (from last year’s Special Session) to referendum, so it’s to repeal the bill.
I wld have signed it if I knew where to find it. Did you sign it?
Yes, signed and circulated a couple of others. Had I had more I probably could have gotten more signatures.