Backers of I-1552 have run out of time to gather signatures for their discriminatory initiative to roll back protections for transgender individuals in Washington, and they’re nowhere near making the ballot — at least not according to their publicly posted numbers.

As of today, the I-1552 campaign claimed to have 206,004 signatures, which is 123,996 signatures short of their goal of 330,000. 330,000 signatures are the number they need to ensure a spot on the statewide general election ballot. Less than forty-eight hours now remain until the deadline passes to submit petitions to the Secretary of State.

Given that the campaign has acknowledged only having 62% of what they need, it seems they are on the verge of being forced to admit defeat for the second year in a row.

Leading up to June 9th, the campaign’s average daily signature intake was nine hundred and twenty six signatures. At that juncture, about a month out from July 7th, the campaign needed its average daily intake to increase by a factor of about ten due to its very slow start. But that hasn’t happened.

Between June 9th and 21st, the average intake increased by a factor of just three, to 2,964. Since June 21st, the average daily intake has been 4,607 signatures. That has gotten the campaign to just over 200,000 signatures, which is what we estimated they could end up with if their efforts continued along the trajectory they were on.

Gathering 120,000 signatures in less than forty-eight hours is logistically impossible, so unless the campaign has signatures in reserve that they haven’t disclosed they have, they’re toast. We look forward to celebrating the demise of I-1552 on Friday.

Serious, potentially fatal defects have been uncovered on a sampling of petitions printed for I-1552, this year’s right wing attempt to roll back transgender rights, which means the measure could be doomed regardless of how well its signature drive goes in its final days.

In a letter to Secretary of State Kim Wyman, the coalition responsible for fighting I-1552, Washington Won’t Discriminate (which includes NPI’s Permanent Defense) explains:

We are writing to inform you that we have learned that petitions distributed by proponents of I-1552 contain multiple violations of Washington’s constitutional and statutory requirements.

These errors on the petition sheets include, but are not limited to:

1. misrepresenting the court-established ballot title for I-1552 ;
2. incorrectly presenting the court-established ballot measure summary; and
3. f ailing to include the full text of the measure on the reverse side of petition sheets.

Because the Washington Constitution requires the full text of a measure to appear on all petition sheets, we would expect the Secretary of State will not accept any petitions for I-1552 that fail to comply with this constitutional requirement. In addition, we would expect that the Secretary of State will not accept petitions that misrepresent the ballot title and/or the ballot measure summary of I-1552 . These requirements are important measures to prevent fraud and mistake in the gathering of signatures in support of initiatives and should be applied scrupulously.

These may sound like pretty fundamental errors, but considering what else we’ve heard about the Yes on I-1552 effort, it’s not surprising. It fits with the pattern we’ve seen. This is a sloppily run campaign that has been plodding along for most of the year and is now scrambling because the signature deadline is fast approaching.

I-1552 backers have struggled to raise money and have mismanaged their signature drive. Now they have an even bigger problem on their hands.

We may never know if those petitions would have been rejected, though, because it’s quite possible I-1552’s backers won’t ever turn them in to be validated. They were a no-show last year when they realized I-1515 would not have enough signatures to qualify.

As of Wednesday, June 21st, the I-1552 campaign claimed it had 141,500 signatures. That’s less than half of what it needs, and time is quickly running out. The drop-dead date to submit signatures is two weeks from today.

In our last I-1552 threat analysis, we calculated that backers of I-1552 would need to collect an average of 8,215 signatures a day. Going by the numbers they’ve provided (which may not be truthful), their actual average daily intake for mid-June has only been around 2,964 signatures.

If signatures continue to come in at around the current rate, they’ll wind up with about 200,000 signatures — 130,000 short of what they need.

If they were to double their average daily intake starting today, that would get them closer — but still not close enough to qualify. They need to almost triple their current average intake in order to make it.

That’s a tall order. Considering their track record and the potentially fatal defects that could cause I-1552 petitions to be rejected were they to be submitted, advocates of equality have reason to feel hopeful that I-1552 will soon be dead.

Backers of Initiative 1552, a mean-spirited scheme that would roll back protections for transgender individuals, are running out of time to gather signatures and haven’t got a chance of making the ballot at the rate they’ve been going.

So, in an effort to activate their sleepy base, they’ve announced a $50,000 contribution from a mystery donor and tried their hardest to make it sound like the campaign is on the verge of qualifying, needing only an extra push to get over the finish line.

For example, a June 9th email from “Chris” began as follows:

We are going to make it! I-1552 can be on the ballot, and let me tell you how.

First, because of your tireless work, we have officially passed the 100,000 signature mark! We are weeks ahead of last year’s pace. And last year, more than 170,000 new signatures came in during the last two weeks of the campaign alone.

With your continued good work, we know the flow of signatures will increase in an ever-steepening curve. There are tens of thousands of petitions on the street, and only a small fraction have started to come back. The potential is huge.

While we can certainly afford to celebrate, we cannot afford to rest yet.

As we’ve previously noted, to have only 100,000 of 330,000 needed signatures with less than a month to go before the signature deadline isn’t a good place for a statewide campaign to be. The I-1552 campaign had only 30% of what it needed nine days ago, when June was already one third of the way through.

To qualify, the campaign must amass another 230,000 signatures by July 6th (the deadline to submit is July 7th at 5 PM). That’s an average of 8,215 signatures per day.

The campaign first announced the availability of petitions on February 21st. By June 9th, they claimed to have 100,000+ signatures. So, over the course of one hundred and eight days, they gathered an average of about nine hundred and twenty-six signatures a day.

The campaign hasn’t released an updated signature count since June 9th. But even supposing they’ve doubled the pace since then, they still must increase their average daily signature intake by a factor of near ten just to acquire the bare minimum of signatures needed to pass a random sample check. That’s unlikely to happen.

But having already failed once last year trying to get I-1515 on the ballot, I-1552 backers are loathe to give up now. So they’re trying to create a self-fulfilling prophecy. By confidently predicting victory, they’re hoping to garner the money, volunteers, and attention needed to mount a massive signature surge. It’s a desperation move.

$50,000 may sound like a lot of money, and the announcement of the contribution generated some press coverage, along with editorial commentary. Joseph Backholm certainly tried to cast it in the most favorable light possible:

This is a big deal, friends. While we had originally planned to pay for 100K signatures, we are hopeful now that we will be able to pay for 150K signatures. People are stepping up financially. Assuming that continues to happen, this will relieve the load from the volunteers. Will you consider a donation of your own today?

What Backholm neglected to say is that $50,000 doesn’t buy a statewide campaign many signatures. At a rate of a dollar of a signature, $50,000 only buys 50,000 signatures. And that sounds like the rate the campaign is expecting to pay, because Backholm said the campaign was previously planning to pay for 100,000 signatures but can now afford 50,000 more with the $50,000 contribution it got.

Some of the signatures already on hand are no doubt from paid petitioners. But even if we pretend none of them were for the sake of analysis, the addition of 150,000 signatures to the total would still leave the campaign with a deficit of 80,000.

That’s a huge deficit to have to overcome with only volunteers.

Volunteer labor hasn’t been producing very much for this campaign so far, and the mere existence of the July 7th deadline isn’t going to generate the signature flood I-1552 backers are counting on. Hence, the campaign is sending out these prophetically upbeat emails. The campaign may be keeping up the pretense that victory is just over the next hill, but the numbers they’re simultaneously dropping don’t support their narrative.

We will continue to monitor this signature drive as July 7th approaches.