Thursday, July 16, 2009
Casino petitions questioned in Cuyahoga County
Cleveland.com: The Cuyahoga County prosecutor has been asked to investigate whether circulators for a group pushing a constitutional amendment to allow casinos in Ohio lied about where they lived while they worked on the campaign. At stake could be hundreds of petitions with tens-of-thousands of names turned in just by the 16 adult workers in question who all claimed to live at the same Rosalind Avenue address in East Cleveland. "This seems highly unlikely," Luther Liggett Jr., an attorney representing MTR Gaming, which opposes the casino amendment, wrote on Thursday to Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason. The Ohio Jobs & Growth Committee, pushing the casino amendment, turned in over 800,000 signatures three weeks ago which are still being evaluated for authenticity by boards of election and Ohio Secretary of State's Office. The committee needs just over 402,000 signatures of registered Ohio voters, with a certain number of those coming from half of Ohio's 88 counties, to qualify the amendment for the Nov. 3 ballot. Meanwhile, in Montgomery, Preble and Darke counties, the names of people long dead are showing up on the committee's petitions as having recently signed in favor of the casino amendment. That revelation has sparked similar requests for investigations by prosecutors from boards of election in those counties and elsewhere, a casino committee spokesman confirmed. "We are aware that several boards of elections have asked their county prosecutors to look into potential violations," said committee spokesman Bob Tenenbaum. "We support that. We will cooperate with any prosecutor that asks. We have not been asked. But if anyone has violated the law then they should be prosecuted." Tenenbaum added that, while disappointed some signatures may indeed be fraudulent, the casino group is confident it secured enough legitimate names to qualify for the ballot. The Secretary of State's office is expected to announce on Tuesday whether the amendment qualified. If it does not, the committee would still 10 days to collect additional signatures.
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