http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/politics/blog/bal-congressional-map-opponents-turn-in-36k-signatures-20120701,0,4742394.storyThe effort could snatch a victory from Gov. Martin O'Malley, who is being lauded by his party nationally for creating a map that gives Democrats a good chance of picking up a Congressional seat this fall. And it could give the state's minority Republican party new standing in Annapolis, showing that they can threaten "inside baseball" laws in addition to headline grabbing ones like in-state tuition for some illegal immigrants and same-sex marriage.
But if the group succeeds in collecting 55,736 signatures, voters will have a chance to overturn it and force the General Assembly to redraw the map for the 2014 election. Organizers hoped to exceed the number by a substantial margin to account for the 10 percent of signatures likely to be discarded by state election officials because of various errors.
It remains far from certain that voters will ever have the chance to weigh-in. The Republicans fell short of their self-imposed goal of gathering 75,000 names. The opponents, at this point, has 7,294 more signatures than the 55,736 required to trigger the referendum.
Haha, interesting. Of the first half roughly 9% were found invalid.
