INITIATIVE TO MAKE POT LEGAL MAY BE DOOMED

Humboldt County Officials Report Signature Shortage

The marijuana initiative will fall short in Humboldt County, officials
there said today.

If that holds true, the initiative that would allow voters to decide
on Nov. 2 whether adults should be legally able to possess up to one
ounce of pot will not make the November ballot unless the Secretary of
State's office orders that every signature in Clark and Humboldt
counties be checked, officials said.

With the initiative failing in Clark County, Douglas and Eureka County
on Wednesday and the petition not being filed in Esmeralda County, the
best the initiative can now do is qualify in 12 counties -- one shy of
what is needed.

Also, the White Pine County Sheriff's office today confirmed it is
investigating irregularities in marijuana initiative signatures in
that county.

Detective Mike Stoke said no arrests have been made and that people
were to be interviewed today in that probe. An employee in the White
Pine County Clerk's office in Ely said some petitions were turned over
to authorities when the names of dead people appeared on them as well
as names of people who said they did not sign the petition.

Humboldt County Clerk Tami Rae Spero, who serves as the registrar of
voters, said a random sampling check found just 298 signatures valid
out of 707 submitted. At that rate, the petition would be 139
signatures short.

"The number of blank lines (on the petitions) were unbelievable and
there were just a lot of signatures of people who were not registered
to vote and a number of duplicate signatures," Spero said.

But Billy Rogers, head of the Committee to Regulate and Control
Marijuana and a member of the Washington D.C.-based Marijuana Project,
said, "The count in Humboldt is just crazy. By our verification we had
488 valid signatures. Humboldt's count is completely off the wall."

Rogers also said it is not the policy of the committee to collect
phony signatures and that if something improper was done in White Pine
the circulator of the petition would be ultimately
responsible.

The marijuana initiative still has one last gasp -- a chance that when
the number of valid signatures from all 17 counties comes in to the
Secretary of State by today's 5 p.m. deadline they will total at least
90 percent of 51,337 valid signatures needed (46,203) statewide to
qualify for a total signature check.

The committee submitted 66,135 signatures statewide. With 26,730
validated signatures in Clark County and 14,116 validated names in
Washoe County, the committee has 40,846.

Rogers said he believes there are enough valid signatures statewide to
order the check of every signature in Clark and Humboldt counties,
which would have to be conducted within 12 days.

Under state law, election departments are required to initially check
the larger of 5 percent or 500 signatures. This would mean that Clark
County would have to check 35,400 signatures.

"If we are told to do so we will, but we already are working nights
and weekends to keep up with the 5,000 voter registration applications
we are processing each week," said Clark County Registrar of Voters
Larry Lomax.

Nine counties were to submit their signature verifications for the
marijuana initiative to the Secretary of State's office today, and
some of them said that the measure should qualify in those counties,
though the numbers of unregistered voters signing the petition were
high.

Churchill County Clerk Gloria Venturacci said this morning the count
was not completed, but that it appeared as though the initiative would
have enough valid signatures, which is 742. She said there were no
irregularities.

Nye County Clerk Sandra "Sam" Merlino said her count also was not yet
completed early today, but that it appeared as though the petition
would have at least the required 1,098 valid signatures even though
296 of the 2,098 names submitted were not registered to vote -- one of
the highest of any petition submitted. She too said none were
irregular to warrant submission to authorities for
investigation.

Lander County Clerk Gladys Burris said on one of the petitions a
husband had signed his wife's name and had indicated that he had done
so.

Dan Burk, Washoe County's Registrar of Voters, said his office
examined 5 percent and found that 132 were not valid. The number of
valid signatures represented 132 percent of what was needed.