Petitions for slots filed

Supporters of a proposal to build a gambling complex on New York Avenue NE met yesterday’s deadline for submitting thousands of signatures on petitions to put the proposal on November’s ballot.

Circulators delivered the petitions to the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics at about 4:15 p.m., saying they had collected more than 50,000 signatures since Thursday — nearly three times the 17,600 required.

Pedro Alfonso, chief executive of the D.C.-based telecommunications firm Dynamic Concepts, presented boxes of petitions as supporters stretched out in the lobby of the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics and spent 45 minutes numbering more than 2,000 petitions before submitting them.

Rob Newell, an Idaho native who lives in the U.S. Virgin Islands and is bankrolling the effort to get the initiative on the ballot, also was present.

“That was a big hurdle,” Mr. Newell said. “I was really impressed with the people who were out there trying to get these signatures.”

Mr. Newell said it was too soon to tell how much the effort had cost.

The Board of Elections has 30 days to verify that the signatures are those of registered D.C. voters.

Opponents of the proposed gambling complex, which would feature video lottery terminals similar to slot machines, said there were serious irregularities in how the signatures were collected.

Dorothy Brizill, head of the government watchdog DC Watch, said she has evidence that many petition circulators were not D.C. residents, as the law requires.

She also said petition circulators misrepresented the initiative when trying to persuade people to sign and that she has obtained a copy of the voter rolls and plans to get copies of the petitions when a challenge period begins Friday.

“These numbers don’t surprise me,” she said. “We’re going to go through the signatures, and we’re going to see if they have 17,000 good ones.”

Vicky Wilcher, the treasurer of the group supporting the initiative, said she thinks supporters will have enough signatures, even if some are rejected.

“I believe we will,” she said. “Had it not rained or had it not been a holiday weekend, we would have tried to get even more because, yes, the more you have the better you stand if any problems do come up.”

Even if voters approve the measure, obstacles are likely to arise. The D.C. Council could vote to invalidate it, or it could be overturned by Congress.

D.C. Council member Carol Schwartz, at-large Republican, has said that she does not support the initiative and has urged residents not to sign the petitions.

Mrs. Schwartz said yesterday she will wait to see whether the measure makes it to the ballot and whether it is passed before she would consider taking any legislative action to repeal it.

“It’s too soon to tell on that,” she said.

The text of the initiative says the group wants voter approval for a 14-acre facility, called the Capital Horizon Entertainment Complex, with 3,500 video-lottery terminals on New York Avenue NE, between Montana Avenue and Bladensburg Road.

The project also would include a 600- to 800-room hotel, a conference center, a bowling alley, a movie theater and retail shops.

A fact sheet distributed by a group calling itself the Lottery Expansion Initiative Committee estimated that the complex would generate $765 million annually.

Under the proposal, 25 percent of the profits from the video-lottery terminals, or about $190 million, would be earmarked for the District.