Lenders have 10 more days to come up with valid signatures

First of all, let me say that I still don't understand the timeline. My original reading of the law (though IANAL) indicated that the referendum would have to go on the first General Election occurring AFTER this November's election. It turns out my original reading was wrong (which I accept without really understanding), and the issue will be on the ballot this election.

Notice I say "will." Is that because I am confident that the lenders will make up the signature differential? No. I'm actually leaning toward guessing that they won't. The problem is that absentee voting starts in less than ten days. There will be at least a week, maybe more, from the day ballots start being marked until the day the signature count is finalized. So regardless of whether the votes end up counting for anything, Issue 5 will be on the ballot.

As to whether or not the vote counts, the lenders are approximately 55,000 signatures (and 11 counties for those who know the details of the process) short of qualifying. The lenders have been running at about a 44% validity rate, so they're looking at needing to turn in at least 125,000 new signatures to even get to the breath-holding threshhold. That's about 4000/day starting from the beginning of September. They were getting 6k-7k signatures per day during the summer, so it's certainly not out of the question, but it's in no way a certainty that they'll make it.