A Republican group backing a referendum challenging newly drawn state Senate districts believes they have inched closer to qualifying just days before the California Supreme Court will hear arguments over whether it should intervene.
A sampling of the 709,000 signatures collected by Fairness and Accountability in Redistricting projects that 490,357 are valid, according to the secretary of state's website on Friday.
That's roughly 14,000 shy of the threshold to qualify the referendum once the verified signatures are tallied. The latest count doesn't include sample results from 13 counties that still need to report their numbers to the secretary of state's office by Tuesday, when the court will hear arguments.
"We will pass the 100 percent (sample) mark by Tuesday," GOP political consultant and FAIR spokesman Dave Gilliard predicted Friday. FAIR's lawyers will argue that the sample proves the measure will qualify and that the court should suspend the redrawn Senate district boundaries until voters can weigh in 11 months from now.
Gilliard's assessment was strongly disputed by Democratic consultant Jason Kinney, who said the relatively low validity rate of the signatures means the measure "is likely to fail."
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