Residents Against The Breakaway have filed a petition for intervention in a lawsuit filed last week by organizers of the City of St. George incorporation effort against the East Baton Rouge Parish Registrar of Voters, which determined in June their petition drive had fallen 71 signatures short of the number required to bring a public vote on the matter.
The St. George opponents’ legal filing contends that the registrar’s job is complete and a Baton Rouge judge—who is scheduled to take up the matter in a hearing at 9 a.m. Monday—should reject the St. George proponents’ suit, which would allow for additional signatures to be included on their petition.
“Alternatively, and only in the event that the court decides that the determination of eligibility by the registrar should be reopened to extend the eligibility date for signing the petition for incorporation from October 20, 2014, to May 28, 2015 … that all validated signatures of electors who died or have moved away from the geographical confines from the proposed City of St. George after October 20, 2014, be excluded from the petition for incorporation,” reads the St. George opponents’ petition.
A total of 17,859 signatures from voters within the proposed boundaries of the new city—or 25% of all registered voters—were needed to get the issue on a ballot. In late May, St. George supporters submitted more than 4,600 additional signatures after roughly 2,000 signatures on an original petition filed in April were invalidated by the registrar’s office. On June 13, the registrar’s office announced it had validated 17,788 signatures on the petition, just 71 short of those required to put the measure on the ballot.
The suit has been assigned to Judge Wilson Fields in the 19th Judicial District Court.
—Steve Sanoski
