A victory for the Good Guys!
I was part of the volunteer groups that looked over the signatures for this (diaried at http://www.dailykos.com/...) and we got some good news...conservative bigots do not have a reason to go to the polls in November now!
From gay.com (full story at http://www.gay.com/...)
Based on a sampling, opponents of marriage equality in Illinois don't have enough valid signatures to get an anti-marriage measure on the Nov. 7 ballot, the state Board of Elections said Thursday.
A sample check of 19 percent of the more than 330,000 signatures submitted showed that Protect Marriage Illinois is likely to fall short in its effort to put a measure on the ballot asking voters to decide whether the state should amend its constitution to ban same sex marriage.
http://www.fairillinois.org
I think this is the first times that something like this was forced off the ballot with the help of volunteers.
From the Chicago Free Press:
The Illinois State Board of Elections ruled last week that a referendum on an amendment to the Illinois Constitution to outlaw gay and lesbian marriage won't be on the November ballot because proponents didn't submit petitions containing enough valid signatures.
The board made the determination after conducting a random check of petitions submitted May 8 by Protect Marriage Illinois, an offshoot of the anti-gay Illinois Family Institute. The PMI petitions contained more than 347,000 signatures supporting the referendum, but SBE officials immediately rejected about 10,000 of them.
In late May, SBE staff conducted a random check to determine if enough of the remaining 337,000 signatures were from registered Illinois voters to meet the requirement that referendums be supported by at least 283,111 voters.
Late last week, the SBE notified both PMI and the Fair Illinois Committee that its random check found far too many irregularities and invalid signatures on PMI's petitions for the referendum to make it to the ballot.
PMI is expected to appeal that finding, but the board's decision is bolstered by petition challenges filed June 26 by Fair Illinois, a coalition formed by Equality Illinois, PFLAG, the Gay Liberation Network, the American Civil Liberties Union, Lambda Legal and others to fight the referendum effort.
Fair Illinois volunteers scrutinized every signature submitted by PMI, and the coalition's leaders said they found tens of thousands of signatures that should be disqualified because they don't represent registered voters or are improper for other reasons.