Lawsuit Filed to Stop Sports Betting Initiative in Missouri

The lawsuit, filed in the Circuit Court of Cole County, is targeting Missouri Secretary of State John Ashcroft, who was in charge of vetting and counting the total signatures in every Missouri county.

If the lawsuit is upheld in court, it will strike down the campaign from the ballot, meaning that legal sports betting will remain illegal without state voters’ say.

Incorrect signature counts?

The campaign in question is known as Winning for Missouri Education, which aims to legalize sports betting largely to help fund the state’s education system. It has drawn the support of many influential groups and persons, namely the owners of local professional sports teams.

The lawsuit was filed by political consultants Jacqueline Wood and Blake Lawrence, who assert that the campaign did not compile the necessary signature count in Missouri’s First and Fifth Congressional Districts.

Missouri law requires a referendum initiative to produce signatures from eight percent of voters in the previous gubernatorial election in at least six of the state’s eight districts.

Ashcroft announced on August 13 that the campaign collected a sufficient number of signatures in six of eight congressional districts. He noted that it fell short in districts six and eight.

The plaintiffs’ claims, however, suggest that Winning for Missouri Education only presented a valid number of signatures in four of the eight districts.

They also said that Ashcroft incorrectly calculated the number of signatures by failing to multiply the total number of people who voted for governor in 2020 by eight percent and then divide that number among the eighth congressional districts.

The suit states that a prop calculation would have resulted in the campaign missing the mark in the first and fifth districts.

Decisive times for Missouri

According to Ashcorft’s report, Winning for Missouri Education provided 55,864 signatures for District 1, well above the required amount of 25,632. However, only 25,714 signatures were valid, meaning the campaign only surpassed the mark by 82 signatures.

The campaign also submitted 34,818 signatures, 29,612 of which were valid, in District 5, which needed a minimum amount of 28,458.

Wood also claimed in the lawsuit that the ruling infringed upon her 14th Amendment rights since “the method employed impermissibly and knowingly decreased the weight of a third Congressional District voter’s signature when compared to the weight of a First Congressional District voter’s signature.”

St. Louis Cardinals president and frontman for the legal sports betting movement in Missouri, Bill DeWitt III, released a statement following the submission of the lawsuit.

“All six Missouri professional sports teams support Amendment 2, which would make Missouri the 39th state to legalize sports betting, while providing tens of millions in new funding for Missouri classrooms each year,” said DeWitt III. “This effort to decertify our ballot initiative is completely without merit, as Missourians came out in force to sign the petition that will be on the ballot in November.”

Voters’ approval at the upcoming election would legalize sports teams and casinos to offer in-person and online sports betting services.

Sports betting revenues would be taxed at a 10 percent rate, resulting in an estimated $28.9 million in annual tax funding.