BENTONVILLE — A group leading the effort to place retail alcohol sales on the November ballot in Benton County did not submit any signatures to the county clerk’s office on Monday — the first day submissions were allowed.
Keep Dollars in Benton County has until Aug. 8 to submit the approximately 40,000 signatures required to place the issue on the ballot, according to Dana Ferguson, deputy county clerk.
Spokesperson Marshall Ney said the group will have an announcement soon on how close it is to obtaining the necessary signatures and when it will begin submitting them. Keep Dollars in Benton County kicked off its signature drive in mid-February, and has since gathered more than 35,800 signatures, according to news releases from the organization.
“We’re close to submitting,” Ney said. “We won’t wait until the 8th.”
Once the county clerk’s office receives all the signatures, it has 10 days to certify the submissions. Challengers will then have 10 days to question their validity.
The alcohol sales issue is decided at the county level and follows a timetable separate from statewide initiatives, which were due to the Secretary of State’s Office last Friday. State law requires groups have signatures from 38 percent of a county’s registered voters for an alcohol initiative to make it to the ballot.
Alcohol-related ballot measures require far more signatures than many other initiatives. For an amendment to the Arkansas Constitution to be included on the statewide ballot, petitioners need only to gather 78,133 signatures from around the state, or 10 percent of the votes cast in the last governor’s election. Initiated acts only require 62,507 signatures statewide, or 8 percent of the votes cast for governor.
Wet-dry issues require signatures from 38 percent of a county’s registered voters. While Benton County had 105,986 registered voters in the 2010 gubernatorial election, only 53,310 of them showed up to vote, according to records with the Arkansas Secretary of State’s Office. Based on that standard, Keep Dollars in Benton County must gather signatures about 75 percent of the number of voters in the 2010 election.
At A Glance
Alcohol Sales Issue
Keep Dollars in Benton County can submit signatures for its retail alcohol sales ballot initiative between now and Aug. 8. The group must provide signatures from 38 percent of the county’s registered voters, or roughly 40,000 signatures.
Source: Staff Report