I left Marylin Shannon’s house to follow a van that I thought might be headed to the Capitol. It was a false alarm, but I’m glad to be off the side of the road by her house—after several hours of sitting there, one woman with the campaign broke off of a huddle in the driveway and approached my car. She asked if I needed help with anything, and I told her I was a reporter waiting to follow them down to the Capitol. I asked if she knew when they were leaving, and she said she didn’t—then jotted down my license plate number before returning to the house. Very exciting!

Apparently Shannon called Lars Larson earlier today and said they had about 61,000 signatures, and were going to hold off on turning them in until all stragglers were accounted for. I certainly didn’t see a flood of petitions flowing into her house—over the course of several hours, about a dozen people came by to drop off a few sheets each. By the time I left, there were six or seven cars in her driveway, most of which were red, white or blue minivans.

Since I’ve arrived at the Secretary of State’s office, I’ve learned that they called and said they’d be arriving at about 4:15 pm. So stay tuned—but I can’t imagine they’ve picked up more than another 1,000 today. If they turn in 62,000, they need an 88% validity rate—which would be a new state record.