D.C. Slots Canvassers Deployed

Out-of-town canvassers have begun a frenzied push to collect about 19,000 signatures by July 10 to place a video slots initiative on the November ballot.

Those circulating petitions are camped out in front of grocery stores and Metro stops, mostly in pairs, earning $2 for each valid signature they get from a D.C. voter.

Their actions are under intense scrutiny, because a similar effort two years ago was derailed by widespread election law violations, including fraud, and a hefty fine for the slots proponents who hired them. Canvassers had amassed 56,000 signatures in five days, but the D.C. Board of Elections ruled that many had been forged or improperly collected.

The political action committee formed to lead the new effort contends that this time is different, that workers have been trained and warned to follow the law.

"We're aware of what happened last time," said Jeffrey D. Robinson, an attorney for slots promoters. "We're confident that this will be done right."

The initiative, formally called the Video Lottery Terminal Gambling Initiative of 2006, would put up to 3,500 slot machines near Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue and Good Hope Road SE and allow similar sites to be set up throughout the city. Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) and many community activists in Ward 8 oppose the effort.

Video slots supporters -- financed by Shawn Scott, an entrepreneur based in the U.S. Virgin Islands -- must collect the signatures of at least 5 percent of registered voters citywide, and those signatures must reflect at least 5 percent of the registered voters in at least five of the eight wards. Robinson would not say how many employees had been hired but said they were spread "across the city."

Some residents say they were approached by a few local petition circulators early last week.

Yvonne Moore, an advisory neighborhood commissioner in Ward 7, said that on Wednesday, she was asked to sign a petition as she left Covenant Baptist Church, at South Capitol Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue SE in Ward 8, and that she promptly told them, "You better get off church property."

Community activist Dorothy Brizill, who successfully challenged the slots initiative two years ago, e-mailed the elections board Friday to complain that circulators who live elsewhere were obtaining signatures alone or stationed so far away from their required D.C. witness that they were in violation of the law. Although outsiders can assist, a D.C. resident must be "in the presence" of each person who signs a petition.

As of Friday afternoon, the elections board said it had not received a formal complaint about the petition drive. Brizill, however, said she plans to challenge the process.

In front of the Safeway at Piney Branch Road and Georgia Avenue NW on Saturday, a man and a woman with petitions sought signatures from shoppers entering and exiting the store. The pair, who would not give their names to a reporter, said they had traveled to the District to work for a California-based petition management firm hired by slots proponents. They would not name the firm.