Organizers of the City of St. George incorporation effort filed suit today against the East Baton Rouge Parish Registrar of Voters, which determined earlier this month their petition drive had fallen 71 signatures short of the number required to bring a public vote on the matter.
“We found a significant number of signatures that were erroneously rejected by the registrar, and when we pointed the error out to them the registrar refused to do their job,” says Lionel Rainey, a spokesman for the years-long St. George incorporation push. “We were left with no other option than to ask a judge to force them to fix their mistakes, which will result in the certification of the petition.”
East Baton Rouge Parish Registrar Stephen Raborn says that as of this afternoon he had yet to be served with the lawsuit.
“I suppose we’ll get a copy of the suit soon and let our legal advisers take a look at it before we make any comment,” he says.
The suit filed today has been assigned to Judge Wilson Fields in the 19th Judicial District Court. Rainey says he hopes to have a hearing on the matter soon.
“This is something that happens very quickly,” he says. “We hope to have this go before them next week.”
A total of 17,859 signatures from voters within the proposed boundaries of the new city 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. Meanwhile, a group against the incorporation effort, Better Together, released a report claiming 239 signatures previously validated by the registrar’s office were potentially invalid.
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. Rainey says St. George supporters approached the registrar earlier this week about the signatures they claim were erroneously rejected. He declines to say exactly how many signatures they believe were invalidated by mistake, but says it was enough to put the petition drive over the 17,859 threshold.
—Steve Sanoski
