Protect Seattle Now, the group that's working to overturn three agreements between the city and state enabling the deep-bore tunnel to move forward, just announced that it turned in 27,721 signatures---a figure that's well beyond the 16,500 valid signatures the group will need to put its tunnel referendum on the ballot.

King County Elections spokeswoman Katie Gillam told PubliCola the typical rate of invalid signatures is between 23 and 25 percent. Even if the invalid rate is as high as that of Seattle Citizens Against the Tunnel's anti-tunnel initiative, which had an invalid rate of 30 percent, that would still put Protect Seattle Now thousands of signatures above the number needed.

Tunnel supporters have argued that the city council's signatures on three agreements with the state aren't subject to referendum because they constitute mere administrative actions to implement a previously adopted policy. That question will almost certainly get hammered out in court as the referendum on the council's tunnel signatures moves forward.