Ballot measure OK despite error

A ballot measure – and the labor union sinking hundreds of thousands of dollars into it – dodged a very expensive bullet Wednesday.

There’s a mistake on thousands of Initiative 1029 petitions. The form says it’s an appeal to state lawmakers. In reality, the measure’s intended to go straight to voters on the November ballot.

After huddling over the matter Wednesday morning, state election officials decided that the error isn’t a show-stopper.

“Our office determined that it was not a fatal flaw or that would-be signers were misled,” said Dave Ammons, a spokesman for Secretary of State Sam Reed. The language isn’t likely to have affected whether people signed, he said.

“The average person probably wouldn’t read the full text,” he said.

I-1029 would require more training and stricter background checks for many newly hired long-term care workers. Written and bankrolled largely by the Service Employees International Union 775 NW, supporters include several advocacy groups for senior citizens and people with disabilities. Campaign finance records indicate that the union has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars gathering signatures to put the measure on the ballot.

Ammons said election officials didn’t want to hold up a people’s initiative because of a technical mistake. And regardless, voters will have the final say in November, assuming that proponents can gather enough signatures by the July 3 deadline.

The man who pointed out the mistake to Reed’s office Wednesday morning was surprised by the decision.

If the rules can be ignored, said Eddie Agazarm, “then why print anything on the petition? Why not just have them sign toilet paper?”

Agazarm is co-owner of Citizen Solutions, an Olympia-based signature-gathering firm. The company’s not working on I-1029.

He said the mistake was discovered by one of his workers. The error is particularly striking, he said, in light of the union’s advocacy for tighter petition requirements. Agazarm cited an e-mail from union spokesman Adam Glickman earlier this year in which Glickman said petition rules must be carefully followed for the signatures to count.

“There are plenty of existing reasons voters’ valid signatures are excluded,” Glickman wrote. Paper can be the wrong size, he said. The petition might be missing a printed warning against signing multiple times.

The ballot language, Glickman wrote, must be accurate.To allow the flawed petition “is worse than ignoring it,” Agazarm said. “They’re going to acknowledge it and accept the signatures. I guess we can just ignore all these election laws.”

Ammons said the decision was vetted by state lawyers.

“We look at each case on a case-by-case basis,” he said. “We feel comfortable that it’s a good decision.”