The magic number is 7,570.

That’s how many valid signatures petition organizer Dale Lamar must submit before a wet/dry referendum can be set for Cullman County.

For more than a year, the drive to add the county to the ranks of local cities getting in the alcohol business has taken place without that one essential piece of information — a target number of signatures needed to force a referendum.

That changed Friday, after the Cullman County probate judge’s office received word from the Alabama Secretary of State’s office on how to apply state law in determining which signatures can be counted.

“As of today, what I’ve been directed to adhere to is Title 28-2-1, which is the section of the Code of Alabama we review to make decisions about the number of signatures that are needed,” said probate judge Leah Patterson Lust Friday afternoon. “We consulted with the elections division of the secretary of state’s office, and, based on that conversation, it clearly outlines that what you need is 25 percent of the number of voters who took part in the last general election.”

The state law which sets the formula isn’t mathematically confusing — 25 percent is easy arithmetic.

What had complicated things is the manner in which the Code addresses the actual voting process, especially for dry counties that already contain one or more wet cities.

The Code excludes the voting populations of wet cities, such as Cullman and Hanceville, from participating in any referendum on whether the dry county in which they lie can also go wet. However, the Code doesn’t exclude those same cities’ voters from signing a petition calling for a county wet/dry vote.

The way the law reads on those two separate points had made for a lot of guesswork, since Cullman and Hanceville voters do have a say in whether a county wet/dry vote happens — but no say at all in what the outcome of that vote would be.

Lamar, who started the petition in January 2011, said Friday he’s waited a long time to learn that small, but crucial, piece of information.

“Over the last 16 months, I haven’t been able to get a definite number, “ said Lamar. “It’s seemed like it’s been that way ever since I’ve been doing this petition — I’m just about frustrated. So I almost want to run up there and get somebody to notarize this number, before I trust that it’s not gonna move again.”

In order to mount a county referendum, state law requires that a petition collect signatures from registered voters which, when submitted to the board of registrars, surpasses 25 percent of the total number of voters who cast ballots in the most recent general election.

Those signatures don’t have to be drawn exclusively from the individuals who actually voted — they simply have to tally 25 percent of their total number.

In this case, the most recent general election took place in November 2010, when 30,281 ballots were cast throughout Cullman County. By the numbers, that means the current petition must contain at least 7,570 valid signatures — 25 percent of that total.

Lamar, who began turning the thousands of signatures he’s collected over to the local board of registrars last week, said he’s not sure whether he’s collected that many. He speculated that, were it not for some anecdotal cases of theft or loss, he’d probably have reached that number a long time ago.

“I asked, way back, how many signatures I would need, and the number kept changing. So I’ve waited all this time, gathering more signatures. Some get stolen; some folks, you know, threw some of them away. I’m not sure how many we’ve got — I’ve still got more at home I can turn in.

“I guess I’ll have to get a committee together and have more people in on this thing, because I’ve been trying to do it by myself. I’m going to really have to talk to some different folks, and maybe just have a signature-gathering type of event to raise as many more names as we can. That’s better than going to pick up a petition sheet and finding out it’s gone missing. But I’ll go with it; I’m gonna keep on moving it forward.”



* Benjamin Bullard can be reached by e-mail at bbullard@cullmantimes.com or by telephone at 734-2131 ext. 270.