BILL REQ. #:  H-0954.1 

Read first time 01/27/2003.   Referred to Committee on State Government.

     AN ACT Relating to making blank petitions available in electronic form; and amending RCW 29.79.080.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:

Sec. 1   RCW 29.79.080 and 1982 c 116 s 8 are each amended to read as follows:
     The person proposing the measure shall print blank petitions upon single sheets of paper of good writing quality (including but not limited to newsprint) not less than eleven inches in width and not less than fourteen inches in length. Each petition at the time of circulating, signing, and filing with the secretary of state shall consist of not more than one sheet with numbered lines for not more than twenty signatures, with the prescribed warning and title, shall be in the form required by RCW 29.79.090, 29.79.100, or 29.79.110, as now or hereafter amended, and shall have a full, true, and correct copy of the proposed measure referred to therein printed on the reverse side of the petition.
     Nothing in this section prohibits the person proposing the measure from making the blank petition available in electronic form to persons intending to print and circulate petitions, as long as the electronic form is secured so that the blank petition may not be altered by a person of ordinary skill before printing. The secretary of state may make the electronic form of the blank petition available for download from the secretary of state's web site.