Good News (I think)

It appears that the last minute marriage amendment petitions sent to Florida4Marriage.org are sufficient to make up the deficit that was declared after an unprecedented audit a few weeks ago. We now must see if the supervisors of elections will count the petitions in the three full business days they now have before the legal ballot certification deadline, which is Friday. Hopefully, we will have the opportunity to vote for defining marriage as between one man and one woman in November.

Here is the press release...


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, January 30, 2008

67 COUNTY SUPERVISORS OF ELECTIONS
TO NOW DETERMINE IF THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE
WILL BE HEARD ON MARRIAGE AMENDMENT

(Orlando, FL) Wednesday, January 30, 2008. The final boxes of Florida Marriage Protection Amendment petitions received will be submitted today via overnight mail and hand delivery to the 67 County Supervisors of Elections offices and will be received on Thursday morning, January 31, 2008.

Orlando lawyer, John Stemberger, who heads the Florida4Marriage.org campaign stated, "On behalf of the more than three-quarters of a million voters who have signed the marriage petitions, I want to publicly thank each Supervisor of Elections for their hard work. We ask them now to do whatever it takes to process the outstanding petitions and avoid disenfranchising tens of thousands of voters in their counties."

Florida4Marriage.org, the official sponsoring committee, estimates they have received possibly as many as three times as many petitions as are required for certification. "They were pouring in almost faster than we could process them," said Stemberger. Overnight mail delivery of boxes of petitions was also sent out statewide on Monday the 28th and Tuesday the 29th. The real question, however, is whether supervisors of elections will act in good faith and count the petitions in the three full business days they now have after the primary election and before the legal ballot certification deadline. That deadline is February 1, 2008, at 5:00pm EST.
The state Division of Elections took the position that the statutory deadline for citizen's initiatives to submit petitions was December 31, 2007. On this date, according to the state Division of Elections website, the marriage effort had met and exceeded the required goal of 611,009 petitions by more than 8,000. After an unprecedented audit of the petitions, on Monday afternoon January 14, 2008, Florida4Marriage.org was notified by the Division of Elections that the effort was deficient by 30,000 less petitions. This deficiency was caused by 27,000 petitions being counted twice in Miami Dade County.

Campaign leaders, recognizing the immense effort it will take to count the petitions have offered the help of hundreds of people who could volunteer, be deputized or be hired to help process all the petitions in their county offices. This offer was made in a certified letter to all 67 county officials.

Stemberger said, "We are at the mercy of the professionalism of these public officials who are in a real sense the guardians of democracy. We pray they will do their job with all due diligence."

SPECIAL NOTICE TO MEDIA AND SUPPORTERS: According to the Division of Elections, it is their goal to have the final results announced on this Saturday February 2, 2008 at noon. In the alternative, the results will be announced on Monday February 4, 2008.