D.C. board strikes down petition signatures

Chevetta Gilmore

Wednesday, Aug. 4, 2004 | 9:17 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- The District of Columbia Board of Elections and Ethics voted on Tuesday to disallow thousands of petition signatures gathered in support of a video lottery casino.

Backers of the casino were trying to get a referendum on the Nov. 2 election ballot, and needed 17,599 valid signatures from registered D.C. voters to do so. It was unclear how many signatures were disallowed during Tuesday's meeting. But supporters of the casino initiative conceded that the ruling would make it difficult for the plan to make the ballot.

"The ruling was not good for us," said John Ray, the attorney for the casino project.

The decision came in response to challenges filed by Dorothy Brizill, founder of the government reform group D.C. Watch, and lawyer Ronald Drake. Brizill called the ruling a victory for her side.

"The board, in its decision, upheld 95 percent of our challenges," she said.

Ray said it was too early to discuss challenging the board's ruling. However, Brizill said she expects the casino effort to come up again, even if the current initiative does not get on the November ballot.

Casino backers want to put up to 3,500 video lottery terminals in a rundown neighborhood about three miles northeast of the U.S. Capitol. There would be no table games or traditional slot machines. The $510 million, 14-acre project would include a hotel, stores and restaurants, generating about 1,500 jobs and producing $210 million in local tax revenue, supporters say.

Supporters turned in more than 50,000 signatures, gathered during a five-day petition drive. The signatures were collected mostly over the July 4 weekend after opponents failed to block the petition effort in court.

Election Board Chairwoman Wilma A. Lewis said several problems arose partly due to the short time frame of the petition drive.

"Because of the need to collect signatures quickly, many details that needed to be attended to were not, or at least not attended to well," Lewis said.

Opponents of the casino plan contended that petition organizers broke city law by getting circulators from outside the city. They also accused petition circulators of falsely signing affidavits stating that they had witnessed signatures. Two people testified during a week-long hearing on the challenges that their signatures were forged on circulator affidavits.

The DCBOEE scheduled a special meeting Thursday to announce whether the initiative meets the requirements to get on the ballot. Before deciding, they will scrutinize the remaining signatures to determine whether there are enough valid ones, and whether they meet the requirement of 5 percent of registered voters in five of the city's eight wards.

Mayor Anthony A. Williams and several members of Congress and the D.C. Council oppose the casino plan.