A circuit judge will decide early next week whether Randolph County residents will get to vote on an alcohol-sales measure in November.
RELATED ARTICLE
http://www.arkansas…">Johnson County bid on alcohol faces suit
Judge Phil Smith will rule whether County Clerk Rhonda Blevins erred in her decision to reject nearly 200 pages of signatures collected by a group backing the measure.
The hearing, on a lawsuit brought Aug. 12 against Blevins by Keep Revenue in Randolph County, a proponent for allowing alcohol sales in the currently dry county, began Wednesday and did not conclude until Friday afternoon.
Blevins rejected 169 pages of petition signatures the group had collected because the pages contained duplicate signatures, or they contained signatures of people who were not registered voters in the county or because the signatures on the petition did not match signatures on the people's voter registration cards.
Linda Bowlin, committee chairman of Keep Revenue in Randolph County and a retired Pocahontas attorney, claimed Blevins used an invalidated portion of Arkansas law, Act 1413 of 2013, to deny the petition signatures.
Numerous witnesses were called during the three-day hearing.
"The judge is taking it under advisement and will issue a ruling Monday or Tuesday," Bowlin said Friday after the hearing. "Everything went as expected."
Attorney General Leslie Rutledge intervened in both the Randolph County lawsuit as well as in the Independence County challenge by a group who said the clerk there improperly rejected more than 400 petition signatures.
Rutledge spokesman Judd Deere said Rutledge defended the constitutionality of Ark. Code Ann. Section 3-8-811(b)(6) in the cases.
"In both cases, the petition sponsors challenged this statute, which provides that signatures on a petition part containing out-of-county signatures will not be counted unless the sponsor strikes the out-of-county signatures before submitting the petition to the clerk," Deere said in an email.
On Tuesday, Independence County Circuit Judge Tim Weaver entered an order affirming the constitutionality of the section.
Nearly 47 percent -- or 35 of 75 counties in Arkansas -- do not allow the sale of alcohol, according to data from the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration.
State Desk on 08/27/2016