Holy smokes! Eighty percent of the signatures counted thus for a marijuana-legalization initiative are valid, according to election workers at the Washington Secretary of State's office. That's well above the 68 percent validity rate required to place I-502 on the November ballot.

In late December, New Approach Washington submitted 354,608 signatures to the state; 241,153 of those must be signed by registered voters in the state.

Election rules stipulate that the measure can be approved by randomly checking 3 percent of the signatures submitted. In this case, the state is reviewing 10,638 signatures. So far election workers have reviewed about one-third of those (3,835 signatures) and accepted 80 percent as valid (3,067), The other 768 signatures were disqualified for registration or signature problems. Details are posted here.

Obviously, no guarantees here, but it looks like we'll be voting on a measure to legalize, tax, and regulate pot this year.