[TheAngryClam]

This is why Ted Costa and company's "verification" (read: building a future direct-mail list) of the signatures is such a bad idea.

Should have just turned the damned things over and let the state workers who don't do anything anyway have at them.

[John Jorsett]

This is why Ted Costa and company's "verification" (read: building a future direct-mail list) of the signatures is such a bad idea.

They have to verify them for purposes of paying the signature gatherers only for valid signatures. It's also useful in order to expedite the process. The counties will take samples of the turned-in petitions and if the valid signatures are above a certain level (I forget what it is, but let's say 85%), then they know statistically that there are enough and won't bother to verify every single signature. So Ted's group is making sure that the percentage of valid signatures turned in stays high.