Well, I’ve really got to hand it to my friends in Maryland, who’ve worked their tails off to get past the first leg of this petition drive. Washington County Delegate Neil Parrott and countless dozens of others who organized door-to-door, petition drives, and really done an excellent job with this experiment in petition drives 2.0.

For those of you who haven’t necessarily been following this story, the Maryland General Assembly passed a law granting in-state tuition to illegal immigrants this year. Republicans (and some Democrats) are pushing a petition to put the measure on the ballot in November.

According to this morning’s Washington Times:

Organizers of a petition against Maryland’s Dream Act said Thursday they have collected more than 100,000 signatures — nearly double the amount needed to force a November 2012 referendum on the law.

Opponents of the law, which would allow many illegal immigrants to pay in-state college tuition rates, had until Thursday night to turn in at least 55,736 valid voter signatures to suspend the law until a 2012 statewide vote.

Organizers already turned in nearly 58,000 signatures on May 31, 47,288 of which were validated and approved by the state Board of Elections.

Delegate Neil C. Parrott, Washington Republican, who has led the petition effort, said he expected to turn in more than 42,000 more Thursday night – only 8,448 of which will have to be validated for organizers to reach their goal.

“People worked extra hard on this. This is a total grass-roots effort,” Mr. Parrott said. “This is important to people because they know Maryland is spending too much money, and we can’t afford this.”

The Dream Act narrowly passed the General Assembly in April, and while Republican legislators have been its most vocal critics, they have received support from across the political spectrum.

The article may have had an early deadline. I received a text last night indicating they turned in over 70,000 signatures last night. About 82% of the last batch of signatures were approved, so if the Board of Elections approves the same percentage, then MD Petitions will have way more signatures than they need to proceed with the referendum.

The Baltimore Sun reports:

Opponents of a new law to extend in-state tuition discounts to illegal immigrants delivered nearly 75,000 more signatures to the state Thursday, a number they believe is more than enough to keep the measure off the books until voters have their say.

After submitting more than 47,000 valid signatures last month, they needed fewer than 8,500 more to be certified by the State Board of Elections to get the law onto the 2012 ballot.

If they are successful, it would be the 18th time in Maryland history that a law approved by the General Assembly was sent to voters for reconsideration.

Volunteers carried boxes of petitions into the office of the secretary of state in Annapolis shortly before 9 p.m. The deadline was midnight.

Del. Neil Parrott, the Washington County Republican who has led the petition drive, expressed confidence. “We can’t break the rules for some people,” he said. “We are a nation of laws.”

When Parrott announced the drive two months ago, even opponents of the law were skeptical of the chances of success, given the state’s strict rules for petitions.

But the effort was boosted by the organizers’ sophisticated use of the Internet, simmering frustration over the economy and a deep mistrust among some over how the Democratic-controlled General Assembly spends taxpayer dollars.

Del. Patrick McDonough said the petition drive was the “most successful” ever launched in Maryland. Looking toward November 2012, he declared: “We are now in campaign mode.”

Signatures will likely be challenged by the Maryland ACLU and CASA de Maryland, which is a pro-illegal immigrant organization masquerading as a nonprofit.

The next step is lawyering up, and that’ll cost money. If you can, make a donation to MD Petitions today for legal fees.

Well, this is a big mess.

For those of you not following what’s going on in Maryland (as riveting as it seems), the General Assembly passed a bill this Session which would grant in-state tuition to illegal aliens. At the federal level, this legislation is known as the “DREAM Act.”

So, it passed in Maryland, but what recourse do Marylanders have who opposed the bill? Long story short, voters can petition the state to put the bill on the ballot in the next election. And that’s exactly what they’re doing. (There’s still time to sign the petition here.)

The ACLU and CASA de Maryland, a pro-illegal immigrant nonprofit, are vehemently opposed to allowing the voters of Maryland to decide on this issue, even though they supported another online petition effort halfway across the country just a few months ago.

Today’s story in the Frederick News-Post reveals some signers are having issues, due to Maryland’s difficult process:

Delegate Michael Hough was able to cast a vote in the Maryland General Assembly that granted in-state college tuition to illegal immigrants, but he’s running into problems signing a simple petition to overturn the same law.

Hough, a Frederick County Republican, was on the losing side of the vote on the bill, and is now hoping the voters will be able to consider it at referendum through a petition process allowed in the Maryland Constitution.

Petition gatherers need to get 55,736 valid signatures by June 30 in order to stop enactment of the law and send it to referendum. The new law would allow students who have attended at least three years of Maryland high school and can show they or their parents have filed tax returns would qualify for in-state tuition at community colleges, and later four-year institutions, even if they were illegal immigrants.

Hough found out on Monday that his signature on the petition was rejected by state elections officials due to a “circulator issue” — a problem with how the person who collected his signature filled out the page.

Hough is one of several thousand people who signed the petition but were rejected for reasons such as not listing a middle initial.

He is trying to re-sign the petition before the June 30 deadline, but is running into problems finding out if his new signature — and others like his — would be accepted.

“It’s against the law to sign a petition more than once,” said Linda Lamone, state administrator of elections. “… There is no mechanism in the law for correcting once the pages are submitted to us.”

But she said it’s unclear what will happen if people like Hough go ahead and sign the petition.

A prosecutor could pursue charges if they found sufficient evidence of fraud, she said.

And if someone submitted a whole page of people whose signatures had been rejected and were subsequently trying to sign again, the Board of Elections would have to consult with the Attorney General’s office to find out what to do.

The ACLU and CASA will no doubt pursue these challenges in their quest to silence the voters of Maryland. The big question is, how will the State Board of Elections proceed?

I ultimately think MD Petitions will collect the requisite number of signatures — some 56,000 or so, but the battle really begins once the June 30 deadline passes and a flock of ACLU lawyers descends on Annapolis to throw these things out. Lawyer up, folks. It’s going to get bumpy.