(a) (1) Upon the filing of a petition, and unless it has been declared deficient under § 6-206 of this subtitle, the staff of the election authority shall proceed to verify the signatures and count the validated signatures contained in the petition.
(2) The purpose of signature verification under paragraph (1) of this subsection is to ensure that the name of the individual who signed the petition is listed as a registered voter.
(b) The State Board, by regulation, shall establish the process to be followed by all election authorities for verifying and counting signatures on petitions.
(c) (1) The process established under subsection (b) of this section shall provide for optional verification of a random sample of signatures contained in a petition.
(2) Verification by random sample may only be used, with the approval of the State Board:
(i) for a single-county petition containing more than 500 signatures; or
(ii) in the case of a multicounty petition, by a local board that receives signature pages containing more than 500 signatures.
(3) Verification under this subsection shall require the random selection and verification of 500 signatures or 5% of the total signatures on the petition, whichever number is greater, to determine what percentage of the random sample is composed of signatures that are authorized by law to be counted. That percentage shall be applied to the total number of signatures in the petition to establish the number of valid signatures for the petition.
(4) (i) If the random sample verification establishes that the total number of valid signatures does not equal 95% or more of the total number required, the petition shall be deemed to have an insufficient number of signatures.
(ii) If the random sample verification establishes that the total number of valid signatures exceeds 105% of the total number required, the petition shall be deemed to have a sufficient number of signatures.
(iii) If the random sample verification establishes that the total number of valid signatures is at least 95% but not more than 105% of the total number required, a verification of all the signatures in the petition shall be conducted.