POT PETITIONERS SUE BUCKLEY

Supporters of a measure that would legalize the medicinal use of marijuana
sued Secretary of State Vikki Buckley on Friday, claiming Buckley has
improperly kept the issue off November's ballot.

The lawsuit claims that an embattled Buckley, whose office has seen a spate
of resignations and firings in the past few years, conducted an
error-plagued review of the 88,815 signatures submitted to her by Coloradans
for Medical Rights.

Using a random sampling technique, Buckley ruled that only 47,960 of the
88,815 signatures were valid and did not meet the 54,242 signatures needed
to put the measure on the ballot.

But Ed Ramey, lawyer for Martin Chilcutt, one of the initiative's
proponents, said that a thorough review of the secretary of state's random
sampling technique showed it was severely flawed.

He noted that Buckley "issued an improper and unauthorized statement of
insufficiency (not enough valid signatures) on the last possible day for
issuance of such a statement,'' the 30th day after the signatures were
turned in.

As a result, Chilcutt and Ramey will be in court Friday where they will ask
Denver District Judge Herbert Stern to place the measure on the ballot.

"The argument is that if the secretary of state does not act within 30 days,
the petition is deemed sufficient,'' he said.

Buckley has twice missed 30-day deadlines for reviewing petitions and, as a
result, two other initiatives have been placed on the ballot by default.
They are initiatives on term limits and parental notification for abortions
involving minors. (An item in Friday's Post incorrectly said the term-limits
initiative had been found to have enough valid signatures.) The marijuana
initiative would allow people with "debilitating medical conditions,'' such
as cancer and AIDS, to legally possess and use marijuana as a form of
treatment.

Ramey said an independent review of the secretary of state's sampling
technique, which included an entry-by-entry analysis, showed that of the
4,482 signatures Buckley used as a random sample, 225 signatures were
determined invalid which, in fact, were valid.

Ramey also noted that the independent review found other "methodological
errors'' including miscalculation of the sample size, data entry errors,
coding errors and corruption of the random sample by the "statistically
improper practice of including the next signature line following a
blacked-out signature entry.''

In actuality, the random sampling should have shown that 52,312 of the
signatures are valid, or 96.4 percent of the 54,242 required, the suit
contends.

Under Colorado law, said the lawsuit, any time the random sample
verification establishes that the number of valid signatures is greater than
90 percent but less than 110 percent, the Secretary of State is required to
examine each signature collected.

If Stern declines to place the measure on the ballot outright, Ramey said he
will ask the judge to order Buckley to do a line-by-line review of the
88,815 signatures as required by law.

But he noted that by law, Buckley must certify which measures are on the
ballot 50 days before the election, or no later than Sept. 14.

Because Buckley probably could not complete a review of the 88,815
signatures by then, Ramey said he may ask the judge to place the measure on
the ballot anyway.

Of the staff currently working in the secretary of state's elections office,
only one is an experienced elections office clerk.

REVIEWING PETITIONS

In reviewing petitions for election ballot initiatives, the Colorado
secretary of state is required to conduct a random sampling of no less than
5 percent of the signatures and never less than 4,000 signatures. If the
secretary's random sample establishes that the number of valid signatures is
90 percent or less of the required number of signatures, the measure is
ruled insufficient to be on the ballot.

If the random sample verification establishes that the number of valid
signatures is greater than 90 percent but less than 110 percent of the
required signatures, the secretary of state is required to conduct a review
of each signature filed.

The secretary is required to rule on the sufficiency of the submitted
signatures within 30 calendar days of submission.

Otherwise, the measure automatically is placed on the ballot.

Checked-by: Don Beck