Every signature on a petition requiring five hundred or less signatures must be checked for validity by the respective county board of voter registration and elections against the signatures of the voters on the original applications for registration on file in the board office. When a petition requires more than five hundred signatures, every one of the first five hundred signatures must be checked for validity and at least one out of every ten signatures thereafter beginning with the five hundred and first signature must be checked for validity. If the projected number of valid signatures, using this percentage method for the signatures over five hundred plus the number of valid signatures in the first five hundred, total at least the number of signatures required by law on the petition, it must be certified as a valid petition. No petition, however, may be rejected if the number of signatures over five hundred checked using the percentage method plus the number of valid signatures in the first five hundred does not total at least the number required by law. If insufficient signatures are found using the percentage method in order to certify as a valid petition, the county board of voter registration and elections must check every signature over five hundred separately, or such number over five hundred until the required number of valid signatures is found.

If it is a petition seeking to certify a new political party or if the office for which the petition has been submitted comprises more than one county, and using the percentage method of checking does not result in the required number of valid signatures, the executive director of the commission shall designate which counties must check additional signatures.

No signatures on a petition may be rejected if the address of a voter, registration certificate number of a voter, or the precinct of a voter, as required by § 7-11-80, is missing or incorrect if the signature is otherwise valid. The signature of a voter may only be rejected if it is illegible and cannot be found in the records of the county board of voter registration and elections is missing from the petition, or is not that of the voter, or if the registration of the voter has been deleted for any of the reasons named in § 7-3-20(D)(5).

The county board of voter registration and elections shall complete a summary form containing the results of checking any petition and must give the completed form to the requesting authority. The form used for this purpose must be prescribed and provided by the executive director.