I know there have been a couple of diaries about this but their is no doubt the anti-gay marriage amendment here in Florida is in trouble due to the lack of proper signatures to make the ballot. But what hasn't been dicussed to date is just how short thay are.
According to the Miami Herald it has come down to the number of petition signatures that were "double counted." The Miami Dade elections office having problems counting petitions shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone at this point. In any event the exact number they are short is 22,000 in which they have one week to make it up.
If that's the case one wonders how much of an organization they have to put feet on the ground to make them up:
"John Stemberger, chairman of Florida4Marriage.org, said his group would ''immediately'' call on volunteers across the state to crank back up their efforts to gather petition signatures.
''There's a real temptation in pointing figners [sic], but we're interested in getting the job done,'' said Stemberger.
As an old activist myself I can tell you they will have quite problem making those signature up in the alloted time.
For the amendment to pass it needs a 60% yea vote from the voters in the state of Florida. Even if there were a heavy slate of statewide races to drive the turnout of the wingnuts and Christian right, I'm pretty confident that we would still be able to breach that magical 40% firewall to prevent this ballot from ever seeing the light of day.
TrumanDem
Truman's Conscience