Group seeks to overturn ballot decision

Published Friday, June 2, 2006

JEFFERSON CITY (AP) - The sponsor of two ballot measures today appealed Secretary of State Robin Carnahan’s decision barring the proposed constitutional amendments from the November ballot.

Supporters of amendments capping state spending and restricting the use of eminent domain submitted about 200,000 signatures for each initiative - far more than necessary to make the ballot. But Carnahan last week said the papers were submitted in the wrong format, so she would not forward the petitions to local election authorities to verify signatures. Her action prevents the measures from appearing on the Nov. 7 ballot.

Missourians in Charge filed suit today in Cole County Circuit Court, seeking to overturn her decision.

In rejecting the measures, Carnahan cited a state law requiring signature pages to be numbered sequentially by county and said some petition pages for both measures were not properly organized. She also mentioned a court ruling that the original financial summary prepared by the state auditor’s office on the eminent domain petition was insufficient.

Missourians in Charge coordinator Patrick Tuohey said the problems with the petitions were just clerical - not a substantive error justifying their rejection.

He noted the law also states, "Any petition that is not submitted in accordance with this section, disregarding clerical and merely technical errors, shall be rejected as insufficient."

The lawsuit said people’s constitutional right to petition their government outweighs formatting problems cited in state law.

Carnahan’s office said it was following the law and that it wasn’t a matter of just a simple mistake, but rather very disorganized petitions.