Saturday, July 18, 2009
Group sues to toss casino petition
Columbus Dispatch: A group pitching casinos in Ohio's major cities played fast and loose while rounding up more than 850,000 signatures and should be disqualified from the ballot, opponents said in a lawsuit filed this afternoon. The pro-casino group appears to have the 402,275 signatures it needs to place its proposal before voters statewide in November. Preliminary numbers from county election boards show that 452,595 signatures checked out as valid. Still, a rival gambling company took aim at the proposed ballot measure in a lawsuit filed with the Ohio Supreme Court. The suit says the entire petition should collapse under the weight of misrepresentations committed by paid circulators. Among the alleged lapses: Circulators listed motels, businesses and even the campaign office of U.S. Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich, D-Cleveland, as their home addresses. "On the address issue alone, there are more than 50,000 (signatures) we think should be knocked out," said Sandy Theis, who is working for MTR Gaming Group, which owns Scioto Downs horse track south of Columbus and Mountaineer casino in West Virginia near the Ohio border. Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner is expected to officially report by Tuesday whether casino proponents met the 402,275-signature minimum.
The Ohio Jobs and Growth Plan, a partnership between Pennsylvania-based Penn National Gaming and Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert, is promoting a measure for full-scale casinos in Columbus, Cleveland, Toledo and Cincinnati. The proposal is separate from Gov. Ted Strickland's plan to install video slot machines in the state's seven racetracks. Strickland opposes the proposed ballot measure. The lawsuit claims that Brunner's office is poised to accept signatures that were obtained under false pretenses. Some of the signatures deemed valid were obtained by at least one convicted felon, by people who listed phony addresses and by several different people who all used the same name, the lawsuit says. Casino opponents are calling on Brunner to throw out all of those signatures. Brunner's lawyer, Eleanor Speelman, said in a letter to the casino opponents that the secretary of state can't overrule conclusions of local elections boards about the validity of signatures. Ohio Jobs and Growth Plan spokesman Bob Tenenbaum said he couldn't respond to the specific allegations in the lawsuit but reiterated that the group does not condone misrepresentations by petition circulators. "If the secretary of state says we're certified for the ballot, then we're confident that we're going to be certified for the ballot," Tenenbaum said.
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