(AgapePress) - Pro-family groups are vowing to fight after Illinois election officials turned thumbs down on a petition drive to put a marriage referendum on the November ballot.

Peter LaBarbera, outgoing president of the Illinois Family Institute (IFI), says the pro-family groups mounted a massive campaign to get the "Protect Marriage Illinois" referendum on the ballot. "We gathered over 400,000 signatures; we turned in 347,000," he explains. "And yet, still it appears we haven't made the limit of 283,000."

Peter LaBarbera

How could that be? Last Friday, reports LifeSite.net, officials with the Illinois Board of Elections invalidated thousands of signatures. In reporting their findings, the election officials said some people signed the wrong county sheets, some printed their name instead of signing, and some failed to sign their names exactly as it was signed on the voter registration forms 30 to 40 years ago. LaBarbera says the petition law is archaic -- and the action is being challenged.

"We have filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the law as basically denying voters' rights," he explains. "We're in the Court of Appeals now. We're waiting for the other side to file their brief, and then we expect a ruling. There's still a chance we'll get on the ballot through the courts." LaBarbera says it could easily be decided in favor of the pro-family groups.

PMI supporters may not yet be out of the woods, even if the legal appeal turns out in their favor. Opponents of the marriage referendum, which includes the National Organization for Women and the ACLU, have challenged as many 100,000 of the signatures.

According to IFI, a random sampling by the Board of Elections indicated only an estimated 91 percent (258,869) of the signatures were valid. The referendum needs 269,555 valid signatures -- 95 percent of the law's minimum requirement of 283,111 -- to get on the ballot.

LaBarbera, who has led IFI since September 2003, resigned recently as executive director of the Illinois pro-family group to head up Americans for Truth, a national organization dedicated to confronting the homosexual activist agenda. His new organization will be based in Naperville, Illinois. Thirty-seven-year-old David E. Smith, a senior policy analyst with IFI for two-and-a-half years, has been appointed to step into LaBarbera's leadership role at IFI.

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