A long-odds effort to split California into three states has qualified for the November ballot, state officials said Tuesday.
Secretary of State Alex Padilla announced that the initiative is eligible for the Nov. 6 general election.
The initiative is spearheaded by billionaire venture capitalist and bitcoin enthusiast Tim Draper.
The split would look like this: Northern California would include the Bay Area all the way to the Oregon border, Southern California would begin in Fresno and cover most of the southern state.
A new California would also begin in Los Angeles County and cover coastal areas.
Here's what the split would look like by counties:
CALIFORNIA: Los Angeles, Monterey, San Benito, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Ventura
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SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA: Fresno, Imperial, Inyo, Kern, Kings, Madera, Mono, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, Tulare
NORTHERN CALIFORNIA: Alameda, Alpine, Amador, Butte, Calaveras, Colusa, Contra Costa, Del Norte, El Dorado, Glenn, Humboldt, Lake, Lassen, Marin, Mariposa, Mendocino, Merced, Modoc, Napa, Nevada, Placer, Plumas, Sacramento, San Francisco, San Joaqui, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Shasta, Sierra, Siskiyou, Solano, Sonoma, Stanislaus, Sutter, Tehama, Trinity, Tuolumne, Yolo, Yuba.
The initiative needed at least 402,468 projected valid signatures to qualify by random sampling, and it exceeded that threshold, officials said.
On June 28, the Secretary of State will certify the initiative as qualified for the November ballot, unless the proponent withdraws the initiative prior to that date.
