PETITION TO LEGALIZE POT DEALT POTENTIALLY FINAL BLOW

The initiative to legalize small amounts of marijuana was dealt a
potentially fatal blow Wednesday when a federal court ruled that
thousands of the signatures petitioners collected did not count.

The ruling, by a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of
Appeals, upheld by a vote of 2-1 a lower court's decision that some
signatures were invalid because the signers were not registered to
vote at the time they inked the forms.

The ruling, if it stands, would also end the hopes for the group
pushing the "Axe the Tax" petition, which would roll back last year's
tax increase. The tax petition fell short of the required number of
signatures and backers pinned their hopes on the marijuana case.

"It's very bad for us," Joel Hansen, attorney for the tax petition
group, said of the court's decision. "We still have some legal
avenues, but it's not looking real bright."

Even if the court decision had gone the other way, however, the tax
petition still would have been 1,601 signatures short according to the
state's count, Hansen said.

Marijuana initiative's backers decried the decision as unfair to
voters. They said they hoped to fight the decision, but admitted it
might be too late.

"We haven't exhausted our legal options, but this puts the initiative
in great peril," said Jennifer Knight, spokeswoman for the initiative
group, the Committee to Regulate and Control Marijuana.

Knight said the group would decide by Friday whether to request that
the matter be examined by a larger group of judges, known as an en
banc panel.

The ruling invalidated more than 2,000 signatures on the marijuana
petition; the petition needed about 1,900 more valid signatures to get
on the ballot.

By law petition signers must be registered voters in Nevada. When
canvassers for the marijuana petition found residents who supported
the initiative but were not registered to vote, they offered voter
registration forms.

But the courts upheld the statutory rule that the signers were not
considered registered voters until their registrations were received
by their counties' election departments, sometimes days after they
signed the petition.

"This requirement does not restrict speech," Judges Thomas Nelson and
Andrew Kleinfeld wrote. "What it restricts is the power of persons not
registered to vote to change the laws passed by the voters' duly
elected representatives."

However, Judge Harry Pregerson argued in a lengthy dissent that the
signers' rights to free speech and equal protection were violated. The
registration rule, Pregerson said, stifled citizens' ability to
express their views and treated some eligible voters differently than
others.

Because of the rule, Pregerson wrote, "the (petition) circulators are
thwarted from effectively engaging eligible citizens who support the
initiative (but who are not yet registered to vote) during evenings,
on Sundays, or holidays because the envelope containing the voter
registration form will not be postmarked (or personally delivered) on
the date it was signed."

The state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, which has
sided with the petitioners' legalization push as well as their battles
with election officials, lambasted the legal requirement and the
court's decision.

"We care about ensuring that every single eligible Nevada voter who
wants to be heard is heard, not silenced by a rule that makes no sense
whatsoever and that impinges on fundamental constitutional rights,"
Nevada ACLU Executive Director Gary Peck said.

In earlier decisions, the court struck down two other rules for
petition-gatherers: one requiring submitted signatures to be
accompanied by affidavits, signed by registered voters, testifying to
their authenticity; and another mandating that the total number of
signatures include 10 percent of the voters in 13 of the state's 17
counties.

Renee Parker, chief deputy secretary of state, expressed relief that
the court didn't strike down yet another petition requirement. "It's
one of the few state (election) laws that have been upheld in the last
few months," she said.

Clark County Registrar of Voters Larry Lomax said Nevada's counties
are looking to the Secretary of State's office for guidance after a
contentious round of petitions has left the initiative process in turmoil.

"We seem to have a lot of people out there who want to keep suing when
they don't get their way, or when they don't get enough signatures,"
Lomax said.

Lomax said the county planned to start printing ballots for the
November election during the weekend of Sept. 18.