Overview
- Secretary of State Denny Hoskins sent 33,068 of 49,773 petition pages to local election authorities for signature verification, holding back the rest over disputed dates.
- Hoskins is excluding pages with only pre–Oct. 14 dates, asserting signatures before that date are invalid because he approved the petition form on Oct. 13.
- In court, Hoskins’ lawyer said the referendum ballot summary was likely to create prejudice and would be revised in talks with the petition sponsors, with a backup trial set for Feb. 9.
- Hoskins’ office gave conflicting explanations about whether retained pages were being reviewed, with a spokeswoman clarifying that none of those signatures will count toward sufficiency.
- People Not Politicians submitted more than 300,000 signatures toward a roughly 110,000-signature requirement, as at least eight related lawsuits proceed over the GOP-drawn map tied to President Trump’s push to flip the 5th District.