An attempt to split California into six states has failed to make it on to the state’s November ballot, election officials said on Friday.  The man behind the Six Californias campaign, the Silicon Valley venture capitalist Tim Draper, believes government in the state is so broken that the only way to fix it is to break it up.  In July, Six Californias said it had crossed the 807,615-signature threshold needed to qualify as a ballot initiative. The office of the California secretary of state, however, said only 66% of the 1.14m signatures submitted were valid, putting the petition below the threshold.  This, however, has not squashed the dreams of Draper, who said his campaign would now review the state’s review of the signatures.  “The internal verification process conducted by our signature-gathering firm predicted a much higher validity rate than the random sample result. It is unfortunate that the current, archaic system has delayed this process,” said Draper in a statement.  “It is yet another example of the dysfunction of the current system and reinforces the need for six fresh, modern governments. In the meantime, we will work with the secretary of state to verify all of the signatures gathered during the petition process.”  The six “fresh, modern governments” that Draper says should replace California on the map are: Jefferson, North California, Central California, Silicon Valley, West California and South California.  Had the initiative made it to the ballot and succeeded, federal approval would have still been necessary to split the Golden State six ways. The US constitution requires the consent of a state’s legislature and Congress to create new states, bring two or more states together or make other modifications to the country’s political and geographical makeup.  “Six Californias was a solution in search of a problem that didn’t address any of our state’s challenges,” said former assembly speaker Fabian Núñez, the chairman of the One California group opposing the measure, in a statement.  “The implosion of this ballot measure spares us from a two-year campaign of bashing our great state, which continues to be the nation’s bastion of innovation, diversity and progress.”
State says only 66% of signatures in support of plan were valid but Silicon Valley tycoon Tim Draper vows to contest decision