Election board- Signatures should have counted on ballot measure

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Kansas City's election board acknowledged Friday that it has verified more than 300 valid petition signatures initially rejected for a proposed tobacco tax initiative -- new evidence that could affect whether the measure appears on the Nov. 7 ballot.

The acknowledgment made in an interview with The Associated Press came on the same day that a Cole County judge began hearing arguments from supporters still trying to get the measure on the ballot and from opponents trying to keep it off.

Secretary of State Robin Carnahan determined Aug. 8 that the proposed constitutional amendment on tobacco taxes fell 274 signatures short of the 23,253 required in the 5th Congressional District.

The close call, and the lawsuit challenging that decision, led the Kansas City Board of Election Commissioners to carefully re-examine each of the petition signatures. Although that process is ongoing, the board on Friday had verified as valid 314 additional signatures that during the original review were categorized as invalid, said election board director Ray James.

Barring other factors, the newly verified signatures would be more than enough to qualify the measure for the ballot. But that decision would have to come from a judge, because it's too late for Carnahan to change her determination.

The ballot proposal would ask voters to raise the state's 17-cents-a-pack cigarette tax to 97 cents and increase taxes on other tobacco products to 30 percent of the manufacturer's invoice price, instead of the current 10 percent. The projected proceeds of at least $351 million annually would go toward health care and anti-tobacco programs.

Paid petition circulators

The newly verified petition signatures weren't mentioned in court Friday, with most of the legal arguments focused on other contested petition signatures.

Tobacco tax supporters argued that Carnahan should not have rejected 1,880 signatures in the 5th Congressional District submitted by petition gatherers whom Carnahan determined had not properly registered with her office.

About 1,400 of those signatures were gathered by 32 paid petition circulators who turned in registration forms noting they worked for other ballot measures but did not submit separate forms indicating they also worked on the tobacco initiative sponsored by the Committee for a Healthy Future.

Committee attorney Chuck Hatfield argued that the law should be interpreted to allow the signatures based on other forms the circulators submitted. In the alternative, he argued that if a separate form is required for each initiative, then that requirement violates state and federal constitutional provisions granting people the right to petition their government.

Assistant Attorney General Daniel Hall, representing Carnahan, urged Cole County Circuit Judge Thomas Brown to hold petition gatherers to a strict compliance with the law. He said separate forms were not only required but necessary for the public to know who worked on a particular ballot measure.

Meanwhile, the opposition group Missourians Against Tax Abuse, agreed with Carnahan's rational for rejecting those signatures but argued that thousands of other signatures also should have been rejected.

Marc Ellinger, an attorney for the tobacco tax opponents, said election authorities in the 5th Congressional District should not have counted the signatures of about 3,200 people who listed addresses different than what was contained in the voter registration rolls. He said the same scenario, if applied to the 9th Congressional District, also would have left that district short of the required number of signatures.

But attorney Robert Hess, who teamed with Hatfield to represent the tobacco tax supporters, said federal and state election laws both allow voters to change their addresses -- even on Election Day -- so long as they still live in the same election jurisdiction. Consequently, those signatures of people who were registered at different addresses within the same county were properly counted, he said.

Opponents also argued that the ballot measure should be blocked because it illegally contains multiple subjects and would unconstitutionally result in the appropriation of existing state revenues to pay for administration expenses associated with the new measure.

Brown said in court that he does not believe the measure violates the multi-subject ban. He called the argument on appropriations interesting.

The court hearing is to resume next Friday.