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Home > Blogs > Ohio politics > Archives > 2009 > December > 20
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Slots-at-the-tracks ballot signatures filed
Backers of the plan to put Gov. Ted Strickland’s slots-at-the-racetracks plan before the voters said the petitions they filed with Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner on Sunday, Dec. 20, contained enough signatures to qualify for the November 2010 ballot.
A van carrying boxes of the petitions arrived at Brunner’s downtown Columbus office shortly before 3 p.m. Brunner kept the office open Sunday, the deadline for submitting the signatures.
The backers, organized as LetOhioVote.org, said the petitions included 325,496 signatures from registered voters, more than the 241,366 required. The requirement equals 6 percent of the votes cast in the 2006 governor’s race.
They said they met a second requirement - that in 44 of the state’s 88 counties there must be signatures equal to 3 percent of the votes cast in the 2006 governor’s race from 44 of the 88 counties. They said they met this threshold in 53 counties.
Brunner will send the petitions back to the counties where the signatures were collected to be checked and should have the results by the end of January, said Jeff Ortega, Brunner’s spokesman.
If LetOhioVote.org falls short, the group will have 10 additional days to comply.
The group will continue gathering signatures while the current batch is checked, said spokesman Carlo LoParo.
C. David Paragas, attorney for Ohio’s seven racetracks, questioned whether LetOhioVote.org will have enough signatures to qualify for the ballot. Historically, 50 percent of the signatures for such issues fail, he said. If it does qualify, the tracks will push for passage of the slots plan, Paragas added.
LoParo said his group hopes to have 400,000 signatures by the end of the year.
LetOhioVote.org includes opponents and supporters of expanded gambling, said LoParo.
Their goal is giving the voters - not Strickland and legislators - the right to decide.
Strickland, with legislators’ support, put anticipated money from slots-at-the tracks in the current state budget and contended that the provision was not subject to a referendum.
However, the Ohio Supreme Court on Sept. 21 ruled that the plan was subject to a vote of the people, halting any collection of revenue and creating an $851 million state budget hole.
Strickland and lawmakers last week agreed to fill the hole by delaying for two years a 4.2 percent state income tax cut.
Slots-at-the-tracks is separate from the four-casino proposal voters approved last month. That calls for casinos in Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati and Toledo.
