POT PETITION PROPONENTS WANT A RECOUNT AFTER FALLING SHORT

The campaign to decriminalize marijuana in Columbus took a big hit yesterday.

The Franklin County Board of Elections reported that pot proponents are
1,858 signatures short of the 7,213 needed to place an issue on the
November ballot calling for Columbus police and prosecutors to ignore laws
governing possession of up to 7 ounces of marijuana.

Kenneth Schweickart, president of For a Better Ohio, the group promoting
the initiative, said he wants a recount.

Schweickart charged yesterday that elections' officials botched the count
because they are in the midst of a move to new offices and because they
don't have enough workers to do the job accurately.

The Board of Elections, at 410 S. High St., is moving to 280 E. Broad St.
during the weekend.

"It's extremely unlikely that they could have counted the signatures and
evaluated them thoroughly," Schweickart said. "We were just so diligent
about voter registration, and our validity should be much higher. We should
have enough to make it on the ballot."

For a Better Ohio registered 3,100 voters during its petition drive, he said.

After his staff spent the past two weeks checking 10,762 signatures on the
petition, Board of Elections Director Guy Reece II reported to the Columbus
city clerk late yesterday afternoon that just 5,355 were from registered
Columbus voters.

City law requires at least 7,213 signatures -- 5 percent of the turnout in
the last general election.

Most of the invalid signatures, Reece said, were from unregistered voters
or from voters registered outside of Columbus.

One elections worker said yesterday that the petition was one of the
sloppiest she's seen. Just fewer than half the signatures were valid.
Normally, about 70 percent of the signatures on such a petition are valid.

The board checks petition signatures for the Columbus city clerk's office
as a courtesy. Under city law, Clerk Timothy J. McSweeney has the final say
on the petition's validity.

Petitioners could review the signatures themselves and make their case
directly to the clerk that the petition is valid. Failing that, they could
go to court to ask a judge to order McSweeney to validate the petition.

But time for such action is short. After a petition is certified, the City
Council must take it up at its next regular meeting. The last such meeting
before the state's Aug. 23 deadline to approve issues for the ballot is on
July 30 because the council recesses in August.

Even if the initiative made it to the ballot and voters approved it, many
question whether it would pass legal muster. Several lawyers have said that
it would violate the Ohio Constitution. They say a city law cannot tell
police and prosecutors to ignore a state law.

Schweickart has said that his own research indicates the initiative would
hold up if approved.