RCW 29A.72.170

Petitions—Acceptance or rejection by secretary of state.

Applied in 4 court decisions — leading case Washington State Farm Bureau v. Reed (2005)

Most recently applied in Robin Ball v. Kim Wyman (August 2018)

2003 c 111 s 1818; 1982 c 116 s 13; 1965 c 9 s 29.79.150

How often courts cite this section

citing decisions per year

Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.

The secretary of state may refuse to file any initiative or referendum petition being submitted upon any of the following grounds:

(1) That the petition does not contain the information required by RCW 29A.72.110, 29A.72.120, or 29A.72.130.

(2) That the petition clearly bears insufficient signatures.

(3) That the time within which the petition may be filed has expired.

In case of such refusal, the secretary of state shall endorse on the petition the word "submitted" and the date, and retain the petition pending appeal.

If none of the grounds for refusal exists, the secretary of state must accept and file the petition.

Official source: Washington State Legislature. Reproduced from public-domain Washington statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.