California signature requirements

California signature requirements, as with many states, depend on the number of votes cast for governor in the previous general election. The number of signatures for an initiative and a referendum are the same, whereas a constitutional amendment requires a larger number. Because of California's large population, the total number of signatures required for any method are the highest in the country.

See also: California ballot initiative petition signature costs

Signature requirements

In California, the number of signatures needed to qualify a measure for the ballot is based on the total number of votes cast for the office of Governor. For initiated constitutional amendments, petitioners must collect signatures equal to 8% of the most recent gubernatorial vote. To place a statute or veto referendum on the ballot, signatures equal to 5% of this vote are required.

Year	Amendment	Statute	Veto referendum
2011-2014	807,615	504,760	504,760
2007-2010	694,354	433,971	433,971
2003-2006	598,105	373,816	373,816
1999-2002	670,816	419,260	419,260
1995-1998	693,230	433,269	433,269
1991-1994	615,958	384,974	384,974
1987-1990	595,485	372,178	372,178
1983-1986	630,135	393,835	393,835
1979-1982	553,790	346,119	346,119
1975-1978	499,846	312,404	312,404
1971-1974	520,806	325,504	325,504

See law: California Constitution, Article II, Section 8 (b)

Basis of calculation

In 2010, a total of 10,094,839 votes were cast for the Office of Governor.

Filing deadlines

Supporters are given a maximum of 150 days to circulate petitions and collect signatures from the time that the California Attorney General has reviewed their initiative wording and provided a ballot title. Regardless of when the circulation period starts, however, the initiative measure must qualify at least 131 days before the next statewide election at which it is to be submitted to the voters, according to Article II, Section 8 of the California Constitution.

The California Secretary of State's office recommends that supporters consider shortening the circulation period "in order to ensure that the proposed initiative measure qualifies at least 131 days before the next statewide election."

Suggested deadlines

See also: List of California ballot propositions

The California Secretary of State prepares a "suggested initiative deadlines" document from time-to-time that by working backward from the final deadline through the various steps in the qualification process produces a list of suggested deadlines for the various steps required. The document is prefaced with a disclaimer, "The following suggested deadlines are not substitutes for California election laws, regulations, or policy. Other factors, such as amending the initiative measure before circulation or the length of time for circulation, will affect the time it takes to complete the process."

The following suggested deadlines are divided by random sample and full check methods of verification. If a ballot measure is able get 110% of the signatures required, it qualifies for verification by a random sampling. If the random sampling shows that less than 95% of the signature are valid, the measure is not certified. If the sampling shows that between 95% and 110% of the signatures are valid, county elections officials must verify every signature. If the sampling shows more than 110% valid signatures, the measure is certified for the ballot. If petitioners submit a ballot measure on the random sample schedule and that measure requires a full check, the measure will be delayed until the next ballot.

2012

November 6 general

Verification procedure	Request title	Title issued, circulation begins	File signatures with counties	Raw count completed	SOS notifies counties	Counties certify results to SOS	SOS announces if 100% count required	100% signature check completed	SOS announces fate
Random sample	September 30, 2011	November 22, 2011	April 20, 2012	May 2, 2012	May 11, 2012	June 25, 2012	June 28, 2012	NA	NA
Full check	August 11, 2011	October 4, 2011	March 2, 2012	March 14, 2012	March 23, 2012	May 4, 2012	May 14, 2012	June 26, 2012	June 28, 2012

June 5 primary

Note: With the enactment of California Senate Bill 202, signed by Jerry Brown on October 7, there will only be two initiatives on the June 5, 2012 ballot in California. These are two initiatives that qualified for the ballot prior to the enactment of SB 202. The dates and deadlines in the chart below are no longer relevant for petition drives in California, since it is no longer possible, due to SB 202, for an initiative to qualify for the June 5 ballot.

Verification procedure	Request title	Title issued, circulation begins	File signatures with counties	Raw count completed	SOS notifies counties	Counties certify results to SOS	SOS announces if 100% count required	100% signature check completed	SOS announces fate
Random sample	May 4, 2011	June 24, 2011	November 21, 2011	December 5, 2011	December 8, 2011	January 24, 2012	January 26, 2012	NA	NA
Full check	March 4, 2011	April 26, 2011	September 23, 2011	October 5, 2011	October 14, 2011	November 30, 2011	December 7, 2011	January 23, 2012	January 26, 2012

February 7 presidential primary

Note: This timeline was prepared by the California Secretary of State before the State of California decided that there would not be a February 2012 presidential primary. Since that primary was moved to the regular June ballot, this chart is included here for historical purposes only.

Verification procedure	Request title	Title issued, circulation begins	File signatures with counties	Raw count completed	SOS notifies counties	Counties certify results to SOS	SOS announces if 100% count required	100% signature check completed	SOS announces fate
Random sample	December 31, 2010	February 22, 2011	July 22, 2011	August 3, 2011	August 12, 2011	September 27, 2011	September 29, 2011	NA	NA
Full check	November 10, 2010	January 4, 2011	June 3, 2011	June 15, 2011	June 20, 2011	August 2, 2011	August 12, 2011	September 27, 2011	September 29, 2011

2010

November 2 general

Verification procedure	Request title	Title issued, circulation begins	File signatures with counties	Raw count completed	SOS notifies counties	Counties certify results to SOS	SOS announces if 100% count required	100% signature check completed	SOS announces fate
Random sample	September 25, 2009	November 17, 2009	April 16, 2010	April 28, 2010	May 7, 2010	June 21, 2010	June 24, 2010	NA	NA
Full check	August 6, 2009	September 29, 2009	February 26, 2010	March 10, 2010	March 18, 2010	April 30, 2010	May 9, 2010	June 21, 2010	June 24, 2010

June 8 primary

Verification procedure	Request title	Title issued, circulation begins	File signatures with counties	Raw count completed	SOS notifies counties	Counties certify results to SOS	SOS announces if 100% count required	100% signature check completed	SOS announces fate
Random sample	April 29, 2009	June 19, 2009	November 16, 2009	November 30, 2009	December 9, 2009	January 25, 2010	January 28, 2010	NA	NA
Full check	March 6, 2009	April 28, 2009	September 25, 2009	October 7, 2009	October 15, 2009	December 1, 2009	December 10, 2009	January 26, 2010	January 28, 2010

Recall

• For recall, there must be a filing of a notice-of-intent-to-recall petition signed by 65 voters.

Once the actual petition is circulated, signatures must equal 12% (20% for state legislators) of the last vote for the offical being recalled, including voters from each of five counties equal in number to 1% of the last vote for the office in that county.

Signature verification

Once proponents of an initiatives have collected their signatures, they submit the signatures to the election division of each county where signatures were collected. Once the signatures are filed, county election officials have eight working days to:

• Determine the total number of signatures submitted in their county.
• Report the total to the California Secretary of State.

Raw count

After the Secretary of State has collected reports from the counties around the state where signatures were filed, he or she must determine whether the raw count of signatures as provided by county officials adds up to at least 100% of the required number of signatures. If the raw count does not total the minimum number of required signatures, the Secretary of State is required to mmediately notify the appropriate county officials that the initiative has failed and that they need take no further action on it.

Random sample

If the raw count of signatures does equal 100% (or more) of the total number of signatures needed to qualify the proposition, the Secretary of State notifies county officials that they are to inspect some of the signatures in their care for validity within 30 working days. Specifically, the county officials are to use a random sampling procedure to choose the greater of 500 signatures or 3% of the signatures filed in their county; and they then must determine how many of those signatures are valid. (In counties where 500 or fewer signatures were submitted, the county must inspect all the signatures for validity.)

Once a county election department has inspected the required number of signatures, they are to report to the Secretary of State the percentage of valid signatures they discovered. For example, if a county inspects 500 signatures and determines that 400 of those signatures are valid, they would report that they had found a validity rate of 80%.

The 95%-110% rule

After the Office of the Secretary of State has collected information about validity rates from all counties where signatures were filed, the office applies a formula to determine the statewide total of valid signatures.

• If this calculation determines that the number of valid signatures is less than 95% of the number of required signatures, the Secretary of State issues a "failure notice", which declares that the proposition has failed to qualify for the ballot.

• If the calculation determines that the number of valid signatures is greater than 110% of the required number of signatures, the Secretary of State as per Section 9030 and 9033 determines that the proposition has qualified for the ballot "without further verification".

Full check

However, if the calculation by the Secretary of State determines that the number of valid signatures on the petition falls somewhere between 95%-110%, the Secretary of State then must direct election officials in counties where signatures were filed to inspect every single signature filed in their county for validity. This process is known as the "full check." County election officials are required to complete the full check within 30 working days of the time that they receive a notification from the Secretary of State saying they need to perform a full check.

Because it takes much longer to qualify a petition for the ballot if the number of signatures is determined in the random sampling procedure to fall within the 95%-110% range than if the number of signatures is determined to be higher than 110% of those required, petition sponsors are encouraged either to collect enough signatures to go over the 110% threshold, or to allow plenty of additional time if it is likely they will fall within the 95%-110% window.

See also

• Laws governing the initiative process in California

External links

• How to Qualify an Initiative from the Secretary of State
• NCSL signature chart for 2008
• Recall in California from Berkeley.edu
• I&R Petition Signature Requirements from the California Secretary of State
• California signature requirements collated by the Citizens in Charge Foundation