Boxes of petitions arrive daily waiting to be reviewed in a process called scrubbing. Ron Prentice of the California Family Council says overworked volunteers have the first shot at the petitions in San Diego and San Jose, then they get a second look by the Protect Marriage staff in Sacramento and LA.

“When we scrub petitions we look for everything from someone who forgot to sign it, someone who neglected to sign the declaration of circulator piece at the bottom of the petition.”

They expect the remainder of the petitions to arrive in the coming days.

“We know that we’re extremely close to our goal of 1.1 million," says Prentice. "And if all of the petitions that have been distributed would come back, we know that we would exceed it by far.”

One way to gauge the success of the petition drive is to look at history. San Diego pastor Chris Clark says this is the state’s second shot at the amendment.

“Two years ago the same amendment gathered 250 thousand signatures. Right now I understand we are almost at the 950 thousand count.”

The difference this time around was the church. Clark started addressing the issue from the pulpit and made sure a petition was circulated among the congregation.

“The pastors in this state saw the dire circumstances and became involved and stood in their pulpits and boldly pronounced that this was the time for God’s people to stand up.”

They did, and are making a difference.