ELECTION OFFICIALS VERIFY PETITIONS

It will probably be late next week before all county clerks across Missouri are able to complete the verification of signatures on three statewide petitions.

Verification would send issues to voters in the Nov. 8 general election.

Gene Wiseman, from the secretary of state's elections division, said Thursday that originally election authorities were given until today to complete the verification process. But he said some of the larger counties are having difficulty getting the task completed and it may take another week.

"A lot of the larger jurisdictions are still out," said Wiseman. "We will be monitoring them closely to see when they will be in. At this point, we are not sure where we are. The larger counties take more time and we are going to work with them."

Petitions were submitted for three issues early last month: Hancock II, which would toughen the Hancock Amendment to the state constitution passed 14 years ago; make games of chance, including slot machines, legal for riverboat gambling; and make a change in state law limiting campaign contributions for primary and general elections to $300 for statewide offices.

Wiseman said once the petitions are sent back to the secretary of state's office, their job is to compile the counts. He said it will probably be the first week of September before final results are announced.

Since Hancock and gambling are constitutional changes, signatures of registered voters must equal 8 percent of the total votes cast in the last vote for governor in six of the nine congressional districts in the state. In all, that comes to about 130,000 signatures.

For statutory issues, such as the limit on campaign contributions, signatures equal to 5 percent of the total votes cast in the last gubernatorial election in six of the nine districts are required.

Petitions for the issues were not distributed in all congressional districts or counties, so for some counties the verification process is small. But for larger counties it is a major undertaking.

Cape Girardeau County Clerk Rodney Miller said his staff completed the verification of registered voters Tuesday and have returned the petitions to Jefferson City.

Sherry Lamedco, deputy county clerk, said the process was quite time consuming and required almost fulltime work for a week from herself, Lois Boston a voter registration clerk, and Miller.

"We spent almost full time checking names. It was quite a job," said Lamedco.

Petitions were circulated in Cape County only for riverboat gambling and Hancock II.

Of the 8,281 names submitted for the gambling issue, Lamedco said 6,308 were verified as registered county voters; 1,460 were found not to be registered; and 511 were discarded because of having the wrong address.

On the 3,009 names submitted on petitions for Hancock II, she explained that 2,277 were verified as properly registered; 553 were not registered; and 179 had the wrong address.

One of the most difficult tasks in the verification process, especially in larger counties, is removing any duplicate signatures.

About 65,000 pages of signatures were submitted to the secretary of state's office for the proposed ballot issues.