The pro-casino group Keep the Money in Nebraska has collected 130,000-plus signatures—9 percent more than what’s required—to put a gambling constitutional amendment on the November ballot. However, officials in Lancaster, Douglas and Sarpy counties—the three largest in the state—have indicated about 30 percent of the signatures cannot be validated.
Scott Lautenbaugh, director of Keep the Money in Nebraska, said, “That seems impossibly high based upon the standards that have been used with prior petitions. Obviously the population centers are where the bulk of the signatures would come from because that’s where people are. But hopefully we can make it up and we can see if there’s something different about how they validated and then have them reconsider them.”
But election officials says more than 24,000 names were rejected because the were either not registered to vote in Nebraska or they weren’t registered in the county they said they were registered.
Lautenbaugh added his group vetted petition signatures before submitting them to the state. He said the group has requested documents from the secretary of state to confirm the gambling petition is being validated as in past petitions. “We’ve invested a lot of time and money and effort into this point so we’re not going to just let it go,” he stated.
Douglas County Election Commissioner Brian Kruse responded, “The way that we are verifying signatures with the gambling petition, I can assure you is the way that the individuals in this office, our office, has always verified those signatures and those directives come from the Secretary of State’s office, our county.”
