Petitions On Health Care Alternative Fall Short

An initiative petition to give managed-care patients the right to see naturopaths and other alternative health care providers failed to attract enough signatures to qualify for the ballot.

Initiative 192 needed at least 181,667 signatures of registered voters in order to qualify, but attracted far fewer than that, Secretary of State Ralph Munro said Wednesday.

Munro said in a news release that sponsors of I-192 submitted a total of 188,967 petition signatures. Election workers compared 58,883 signatures with voter registration records and found 9,503 to be invalid.

“Because the petition has fallen below the required minimum, the signature check has been discontinued,” the news release said.

If certified, the initiative would have gone to the Legislature, which could have passed it or ignored it. Had it chosen the latter, the measure would have gone to voters in November.

The failure of I-192 to qualify means the Legislature faces no initiatives from the people this year. Eleven other efforts failed to attract enough signatures to qualify, their backers said earlier this month.