Smacking Referendum petitions falls short – but only just

NZPA reports that the petition to force a referendum on the anti-smacking law has not made its target of 10% of voters, as too many were found to be invalid.

However the law provides for them to have another two months to bring it back over the level required, and they should manage this easily.

They needed 285,027 signatures valid signatures. They got 324,216 but a sample found around 11% were not able to be found on the electoral roll plus 1% illegible and 0.5% duplicates.  This is about normal off mory.

So their valid signatures were calculated as 269,500 so they need 16,000 more valid signatures which is probably 20,000 more total signatures to be safe.

I suspect the Government is nervous about having every voter reminded of the law they are primarily identified with, at the very point at which they are voting.