Section 434-379-0071 - Maintenance of initiative and referendum series and assignment of serial numbers(1) The secretary of state shall maintain a separate series of serial numbers for initiatives to the people, initiatives to the legislature, referendum bills, and referendum measures.(a) The series for initiatives to the legislature shall be eight characters in length, commencing with the letters IL, followed by the last two digits of the calendar year in which the initiative to the legislature will be heard by the legislature and/or voted upon by the people, a hyphen after the last two digits of the calendar year, followed by a unique, randomly-selected three-digit number, as prescribed by subsection (2) of this section.(b) The series for initiatives to the people shall be eight characters in length, commencing with the letters IP, followed by the last two digits of the calendar year in which the initiative to the people will be voted upon by the people, a hyphen after the last two digits of the calendar year, followed by a unique, randomly-selected three-digit number, as prescribed by subsection (2) of this section.(c) The series for referendum measures shall commence with the letters RM, followed by a unique number which is the next on the list of referendum measure numbers sequentially.(d) The series for referendum bills shall commence with the letters RB, followed by a unique number which is the next on the list of referendum bill numbers sequentially.(2) For each annual series of serial numbers, there are 1,000 potential numbers to assign. The randomly-selected three-digit number shall be added to the five characters identifying the initiative type, year, and hyphen. As each available number is assigned, it shall be removed from the list. The secretary of state shall select the random three-digit serial number for each initiative to the legislature and initiative to the people using one of the following processes: (a) A roll of three 10-sided dice numbered zero through nine shall determine the number for each digit of the number starting with the one's place, then the 10s place, and then the 100s place. Once selected, this number shall be used in creating the serial number for the proposed initiative following the two-character designation (IL or IP) and year, and the hyphen.(i) If the digit zero is rolled for the one's, the 10s place, and the 100s place, the dice shall be rolled again to select a number between one and 999.(ii) If the selected number has been previously assigned and is no longer available on the list, the roll of the dice must be repeated until a unique number is selected; or(b) Another method approved by the secretary of state.(3) Random number selection shall not occur until the final text has been submitted by the sponsor and prior to transmitting the proposed initiative to the attorney general per WAC 434-379-0073. (a) The dice roll shall be conducted at the office of the secretary of state and recorded.(b) The recording showing the dice roll shall be posted online to the secretary of state website.Wash. Admin. Code § 434-379-0071
Adopted by WSR 24-04-097, Filed 2/7/2024, effective 3/9/2024