Tens of thousands of signatures accepted by elections officials for anti-gay Referendum 71 are invalid and can’t be credited toward qualifying the petition for the November ballot, says a lawsuit filed yesterday against Secretary of State Sam Reed.

The complaint, filed by pro-gay lobby Washington Families Standing Together (WAFST), alleges that 2,305 petitions bearing the signatures of 33,966 people weren’t signed on the back by the signature gatherers, who are required under penalty of law to testify that voters signed the petitions with accurate information and weren’t offered compensation. The group also claims an unknown number of people who signed the petition were not registered to vote at the time, a violation of state law.

The action, filed in King County Superior Court, comes in the eleventh hour. Elections officials intend to complete the count by September 1. And as of yesterday evening, the petition needed 9,780 more valid signatures to qualify for the ballot and 12,052 signatures remained to be counted. If it makes the ballot, the rights of over 5,000 same-sex partners will go up for a public vote.

“Washington Families has an obligation to do everything it can, and this is part of this process,” says spokesman Josh Friedes. “If we can avoid a divisive costly referendum at this time, it is in the best interest of everybody in Washington state because we should be focused on the basic needs of people in this economic crisis rather than having to spend over a million dollars on advertising and other campaign expenses.”

But the secretary of state’s office has long held that referenda and initiatives are intended to increase voter participation, spokeswoman Christina Siderius said Tuesday. In that spirit, elections officials avoid being overly exclusionary on technical terms—assuming a petition signer appears to be a registered voter.

However, WAFST says that the law is clear about which signatures can and cannot be accepted. And petitions turned in without the affidavit signed on the back by the petitioner are of dubious validity, they argue.

As evidence, the suit includes the transcript of a voicemail from Assistant Elections Director Shane Hamlin, saying that he observed referendum backers at the bottom of the state’s capital stairs before they turned them in. “As they were kind of doing their pre-inspection, any petition that did not have a signed declaration, they would stamp it with a signature by [referendum filer] Larry Stickney,” he said.

“Obviously, one cannot truthfully attest ‘under penalty of law’ to the required statements if the signer did not personally circulate the petition and does not have personal knowledge of the relevant facts,” says the suit, assembled by the law firm Perkins Coie.

To illustrate that petitions stamped with Christian activist Stickey’s signature may have been obtained under dubious circumstances, the suit includes examples of harassing and misleading tactics used by petitioners. In one case, the Centralia Chronicle reports that a woman who refused to sign the petition in front of Wal-Mart was badgered until her daughter began to cry. The article says, “the man refused to relent, pressing her for information and following her in the parking lot.” The man was wearing a badge identifying him as “Dan Ricca,” a name he would not confirm, but the paper reported that Ricca “has been accused of multiple election and voter fraud schemes in California and Oregon,” mostly perpetrated in front of Wal-Mart and Target.

The suit provides two letters sent by voters to the secretary of state’s office asking to have their names removed from the petition. One signer, whose name is redacted, explains that “my signature was obtained under false pretenses as the signature gatherers misrepresented themselves.” The person continues, “I signed because I support SB 5568 [the domestic partnership bill].”

An election observer also testifies that some signatures were approved by voters who weren’t registered until July 20, only five days before the petition was turned in. Elections workers say they have accepted signatures from people who may not have been registered at the time. State law says only registered voters may sign.

However, both arguments face challenges: It's unclear how many voters weren't registered when they signed (or if that would change the outcome), or if the affidavit, which applies to accurate information and compensation, is relevant to the arguments of misleading petition signers.

Friedes acknowledges that the referendum could make the ballot despite this lawsuit. “Right now, everybody needs to be making sure that their families know that they have to vote to approve Referendum 71 if this qualifies,” he says. “We cannot be complacent even though it is undoubtedly true that there is significant support for the domestic partnership law in Washington state and protecting gay and lesbian families; this is an off-year election year and voter turnout in an off-year election year is very low. So you can have 70 percent of the electorate supporting the domestic partnership law and still lose the election if the people who vote are the people who oppose the domestic-partnership law.”