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With the Referendum 71 signature-check now nearly complete, state election officials say they've now confirmed that sponsors turned in more than the bare minimum needed for a spot on the November statewide ballot. Signature-checkers passed the 121,000 mark on Monday, the 23rd day of an exhaustive hand check of all 137,000-plus signatures submitted on July 25 by foes of a new "everything but marriage" domestic partnership law passed by the Legislature in April. It takes 120,577 valid Washington voter signatures to qualify a referendum to the state ballot.

The latest signature update for Referendum 71 indicates that well over 125,000 signatures have been reviewed, with almost 111,000 of them being accepted.

We know that many of you are tracking the signature check for Referendum 71 on the Elections Division R-71 webpage http://wei.sos.wa.gov/osos/en/initiativesReferenda/Pages/R-71SignatureStats.aspx . You should know that the reporting of the "error rate" has been changed today to reflect the fact that some of the previously rejected signatures are later reversed by a master-checker. Some signatures are a "close call" that needs a supervisor's scrutiny.

Secretary of State Sam Reed joined in recognizing and thanking volunteers for the Historical Records project, State Library and State Archives (including its Central Washington branch) for their service. Sam noted that over the past year, more than 10,000 volunteer hours have been tracked – on projects like birth and death returns, marriage, military, nurse applications, school census, naturalization records, and other categories. The event was held Friday at the Yakima Valley Museum.

One of the possible reasons why the teen vampire thriller “Twilight” (both the book series and the movie) has been such a hit around Washington is that the book version takes place in Forks, and the movie was shot in Kalama. According to a Seattle P-I story today, the “Twilight” sequel will supposedly be filmed in British Columbia because producers can get a better deal up there. Apparently, our state Legislature doesn’t want that to happen again. The Senate today voted 44-2 to pass House Bill 2042, which is designed to make Washington more competitive in the motion picture biz.