Petitions to overturn Lynnwood’s fireworks ban could all be counted by Wednesday afternoon.
Snohomish County Elections Manager Garth Fell said Tuesday that he expects that officials will have counted all petitions Wednesday or early Thursday.
Fell also said that early counting indicates that the number of valid signatures is likely to fall short of the required 2,708.
Sponsors turned in 4,740 signatures Friday — 43 percent more than the required number, but Fell said that about half of the signatures counted so far have not been from registered Lynnwood voters.
Some signatures may be from voters who live in unincorporated areas near the city that have Lynnwood addresses.
State and local laws require sponsors of city initiatives to gather signatures from at least 15 percent of the registered voters in the city. That is harder than the requirement for state ballot measures — for initiatives, 8 percent of the number of people who voted in the last election for governor; for referenda, 4 percent of the number who voted in the last election for governor.
If the Lynnwood fireworks proposal gets enough signatures, it will go to the Lynnwood City Council, which can either pass it or put it on an upcoming ballot.
The proposal would overturn a ban on all fireworks that the Council passed early this year.
Former Councilman Ted Hikel leads the sponsoring Lynnwood Citizens for Fireworks and Freedom.
The petition signature campaign began shortly after the City Council voted to begin banning fireworks as of next year.
Before the ban, fireworks were allowed in Lynnwood during certain hours on July 4.
Evan Smith can be reached at schsmith@frontier.com.
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