Intervenors backing alcohol sales in Saline County filed an appeal to the state's highest court Monday in hopes of overturning a lower court's decision that their petition was invalid.
Attorneys representing Our Community, Our Dollars -- the group advocating to get the alcohol-sales measure on the Nov. 4 ballot -- filed the appeal after Saline County Circuit Judge Grisham Phillips ruled Friday that the petition fell 86 signatures short after he invalidated 159 names.
Phillips delayed part of the ruling, which would remove the measure from the ballot, because he anticipated the appeal. The ballots containing the measure have been proofread and should be printed this week, Saline County Attorney Clay Ford said Monday.
The Arkansas Supreme Court will decide whether votes for the alcohol-sales measure will count. If the justices uphold Phillips' decision, the votes will not count. If the justices don't, the votes will count.
The heart of the issue lies in about 720 valid signatures that the Saline County clerk's office did not certify. Employees working both part time and full time for the clerk's office stopped verifying signatures after realizing the local option committee had more than the required 25,580 names of registered voters, they've testified.
Deputy Election Coordinator Darlene Westbrook testified Friday that the clerk's office stopped verifying the signatures to save taxpayer dollars. County Clerk Doug Curtis has said the office pulled several 12-hour days and a Saturday workday, even with helping hands.
State law does not require a clerk's office to verify every signature past those of the 38 percent of registered voters needed.
"These 720 Saline County residents signed the petition, voicing their opinion that they wanted the opportunity to vote on this issue in November," Marshall Ney, an attorney for the Mitchell Williams law firm representing the local option committee, said in a statement.
"Regardless of that decision by the county clerk, the signatures are valid, and the 26,000-plus Saline County voters who sign the petition deserve an up or down vote on the issue."
Our Community, Our Dollars -- backed by Wal-Mart, Kum & Go and other retailers -- initially turned in 25,917 signatures July 7, but the clerk's office said 4,406 were not valid. The group turned in 6,738 more July 28, thinking it met the threshold to make the ballot.
The clerk's office certified the petition July 31, saying the sponsors had 25,653 signatures, 73 more than what was required. The measure would have been in the hands of Saline County voters if three residents hadn't filed a lawsuit, contending that the clerk's office accepted several invalid signatures.
Elizabeth Murray, an attorney with the Friday, Eldredge & Clark law firm that is representing the plaintiffs, has said the petitions included some forged signatures or lacked a notary signature or seal. Notaries also didn't witness all of the signatures, the lawsuit said.
On Friday, Phillips ruled that 111 signatures were invalid mostly because, he said, at least one signature was forged on the same petition page. Only one case -- a wife who held power of attorney for her husband -- gave an acceptable signature, he said.
Phillips deemed 40 more signatures invalid because they were on petitions that either weren't signed or sealed by a notary. He dismissed a handful of other signatures out of concerns about voter-registration dates and the date a resident signed the petition.
In his ruling Friday, Phillips said the 720 additional signatures would not be counted, but those collected between the initial submission of the petitions and the notice of insufficient signatures are valid. He OK'd some signatures that were scratched out.
On Monday, Murray said both parties were working to get a written order from the judge, a step required for an appeal.
Murray, who is also challenging the certification of a statewide alcohol-sales ballot measure, said she respected Phillips' decision and was hopeful that Supreme Court justices would affirm it.
Ney, the intervenors' attorney, said he plans to challenge the acceptance of the additional signatures, along with the sufficiency of the complaint. Ney contended that the plaintiffs didn't have facts to file the case.
Once Phillips submits the written order, the local option committee's attorneys will work with court officials in getting together documents for the appeal. Then, Supreme Court officials will set a briefing schedule.
Ney said he anticipated the Supreme Court would rule on the matter before the November election.
"We feel that it's important for people who signed the petition to have their signature counted," he said. "We feel good about our prospects."
Metro on 09/09/2014