D.C. activists to challenge petitions on slots proposal

Candace Smith

Monday, July 19, 2004 | 9:01 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Opponents of a planned northeast Washington casino plan to file a formal challenge today against petitions required to put the slots initiative on the Nov. 2 ballot.

Dorothy Brizill, founder of the reform group D.C. Watch, said many of the 3,869 petition sheets submitted by gambling proponents violate District of Columbia election laws.

"We have found people forging signatures. People claiming they circulated petitions and they didn't actually do it, false affidavits. It's just overwhelming," Brizill said, adding some circulators were seen copying names and addresses out of phone books and onto petition sheets.

Circulators are required to be city residents and only the signatures of registered District voters are valid. Entries that do not match addresses, or were not dated at the time they were signed, also are prime candidates for disqualification.

Brizill said she and other activists compared the more than 50,000 signatures against voter roles. Other volunteers checked to see if circulators lived at the addresses they listed in the affidavits.

"Many of the addresses do not exist. When you go knock on doors, people say the person doesn't live there, has never lived there," Brizill said. "We have office buildings that have been given as their addresses."

Brizill said some of the circulators were brought in from California and Florida.

She said she has documents, taped interviews and witnesses involved in the petition drive willing to come forward.

On July 6 backers of the casino proposal turned in nearly three times the number of 17,599 signatures needed to qualify for the ballot, saying they were confident they would meet the threshold.

Businessman Pedro Alfonso and others want to put up to 3,500 video lottery terminals in a rundown neighborhood about 3 miles northeast of the U.S. Capitol. 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. Alfonso and his attorney, former D.C. Councilman John Ray, did not immediately return phone calls.

The District of Columbia Board of Elections and Ethics is sampling 1 percent of the petition signatures. By Aug. 5 the board is expected to respond to the activists' challenge and determine whether the initiative has enough legitimate signatures to appear on the Nov. 2 ballot.