The proposed proposition to amend the California Constitution to define marriage as between males and females exclusively has been qualified for the November General Election ballot.

The issue could be a boon to conservative candidates running in some of California's more liberal districts and could provide a boost to McCain in areas of the state where he was not expected to do well.

The procedure for getting the proposition on the ballot is interesting.

- The proposition required signed petitions equal to 8% of the votes cast in the last gubenatorial election, which would have been about 695 thousand signatures. 1.12 million signatures were submitted.

- Verification of the signatures is done by sampling. The petition was verified by confirming 3% of the signatures submitted as qualified.

- The last time this issue came up in 2000, the proposed proposition passed with 61% of the ballots. This is the law that was overturned by the California Supreme Court last month.

- A poll last month showed that 51% of those polled were in favor of allowing same sex marriages, which is the highest level of support in a poll in California.

Wow. 8% doesn't seem like much, but only 3% signatures verified? Pretty sure even I could manipulate that.


Not that it makes much difference. If they pass it, it'll just get struck down again.

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1984 300TD

No, last time it was just a law and struck down on state constitutional grounds. Amend the state constitution and the state supreme court can do nothing about it provided they follow the amending procedure.