Missouri Court to Decide on Validity of Sports Betting Ballot Initiative​

Court Hearing to Decide Future of Ballot Initiative

The case, Jacqueline Wood Et Al v. John Ashcroft, challenges the certification process used to place a sports betting initiative on the November ballot. John Ashcroft, Missouri’s Secretary of State, certified the initiative on August 13, but the lawsuit, filed shortly afterward, questions whether the certification followed proper procedures.

The initiative, backed by Winning for Missouri Education, aims to legalize sports betting in the state. The group submitted approximately 370,000 petition signatures before the May 5 deadline, far exceeding the required 170,000 signatures.

However, the lawsuit, filed by political consultants Jacqueline Wood and Blake Lawrence, alleges that Ashcroft used the wrong criteria when verifying the signatures.

Legal Dispute Over Signature Verification Process

At the heart of the lawsuit is the claim that Ashcroft used voter data from the 2020 gubernatorial election to assess whether the initiative met the threshold for signatures in six of the state’s eight congressional districts.

The plaintiffs argue that Ashcroft applied a redrawn congressional map, which came into effect after the election, to verify the geographical distribution of the signatures.

According to the suit, this map shift resulted in insufficient signatures in two key districts, the 1st and 5th Congressional Districts.

If these arguments hold in court, the ballot initiative may be disqualified for failing to meet the minimum signature requirement in six districts, leaving it with only enough support in four.