SNOW HILL– A sports complex referendum petition has 68% of the required signatures with one month to go, officials confirmed this week.
The citizen committee working on a petition for referendum regarding Worcester County’s use of more than $11 million in bond funding turned in a petition with 3,287 signatures May 31. Officials with the Worcester County Election Office verified that 3,064 of the signatures were valid by the end of the week and confirmed that the petition had 68% of the required 4,494 signatures.
“I am very proud of my staff verifying the petition within three days of it being filed,” Election Director Patricia Jackson said.
Since the Worcester County Commissioners voted to use bond funds to move forward with purchasing a $7.1 million piece of property for a sports complex, concerned citizens (members of People for Fiscal Responsibility) have been circulating a petition to bring the issue to referendum. Jackson said Vince Gisriel, a member of the committee seeking the referendum, turned in the petition May 31. While a petition needs signatures from 10% of the county’s voters to trigger a referendum, if half of the signatures are gathered within 40 days the group gets a 40-day extension to gather the other half.
Jackson said the election office had five staff members immediately begin working on processing the petition once it was received.
“First, when a petition is filed, our office needs to verify the petition meets the law as far as being legal,” she said. “Mr. Gisriel had the petition form pre-approved by both the State Board of Elections and our office. Since it is a local law referendum, Mr. Gisriel needed 10% of the electorate and he needed to have at least 40% of the total needed by May 31st. Since the petition met the requirements, there is a 40-day extension to file the remaining petition signatures by July 8th.”
Jackson said petition processing involves election office staff verifying the signers are registered to vote in Worcester County, that they signed the petition using their legal name and that their address is correct. Gisriel’s group turned in 3,287 signatures on 683 pages. Of the 3,287 signatures, 3,064 were accepted and 223 were rejected. Rejections occurred for various reasons, such as if there were duplicate signatures or if addresses were invalid. The majority of rejections, 148, occurred because the citizen was not registered.
Members of the People for Fiscal Responsibility are hoping to get 2,000 more signatures by July 1 so that the 10% goal will be met.
“We would like to express our gratitude to everyone that supported this petition drive for the benefit of all citizens of Worcester County,” said Slobodan Trendic, spokesperson for the group. “We are proud of our collective team efforts and humbled by the responses received from the residents of the communities in our county. Our petition is designed to trigger a referendum regarding the county’s plan to issue a general obligation bond to fund a portion of costs related to the sports complex. Signing our petition is not a vote for or against the project. The petition simply brings the issue to the voters to decide.”
