Proponents of a third casino in Maine are protesting the decision by Secretary of State Matt Dunlop that invalidated more than 55,000 signatures of the 91,294 turned in to put the measure on the ballot. The campaign needed 61,123 signatures to qualify for the November ballot.
The campaign has filed a lawsuit challenging the decision, arguing that the Secretary of State applied standards of reviewing signatures inconsistently and arbitrarily. It also alleges that there are no written guidelines on how to verify signatures when a notary is challenged.
The measure, if it qualifies for the ballot, would allow Las Vegas-based casino developer Shawn Scott, to build a casino in York County. It would be the third casino in the state. The wording of the initiative, proposed by Horseracing Jobs Fairness, would only allow Scott to build the casino.
This is the second time this year that initiative supporters have clashed with the Secretary of State over invalidating signatures because a particular notary of a political consulting fire witnessed them. The Secretary of State’s office similarly invalidated signatures gathered by the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol seeking to qualify a ballot measure. That campaign has also filed an appeal.
State law requires that persons signing a petition do so in the presence of a notary, who then swears that the signature is genuine and verifies the identity of the person gathering the signatures.
The complaint was fled by Olympic Consulting, a Maine-based firm run by a former state legislator, Stavros Mendros, who, nine years ago pleaded guilty to irregularities in signature gathering. His firm was also involved in gathering some of the signatures for the marijuana initiative this year.
The Secretary of State’s office last week declared, “We feel we’re on firm ground and that we did our due diligence when reviewing the petitions.” It predicted validation by the court.
The Secretary of State said that it rejected signatures for two reasons, 1) that some of those signing were not registered voters and 2) that the signature of the notary who is supposed to have witnessed the oath didn’t match the signature on file. The second reason caused more than 32,000 signatures to be rejected.
The lawsuit asserts that the signatures were not checked against known verified signatures, but would check a representative sample of the signatures. When an irregularity was found, all of the signatures verified by the notary were thrown out.
