A district court judge on Friday rejected a Butte organizer’s request to put a data center initiative on the November ballot after confusion about the signature-gathering deadline tanked the initiative last month. John Meyer, the lawyer representing the plaintiffs, said they have appealed the dec ision.  Responding to a proposal for the construction of a large data center in Butte, plaintiff Denise Kelly, the founder of 406 People First, began collecting signatures in June to put a local initiative on the November ballot that would allow voters to approve or reject data center development or expansion. According to court documents, Butte-Silver Bow County officials communicated in a May letter that the organization needed to collect signatures from at least 15% of registered Butte-Silver Bow County voters, or 3,652 people, by Aug. 14 to qualify the initiative for the ballot. On Aug. 10, county election administrator Cynthia Sherman issued a letter, citing Montana statute, stating that signatures needed to have been submitted by July 13, according to court filings.  Read the judge’s orderDownload Kelly and 406 People First sued the county and election administrator on Aug. 12, alleging that the statute had been applied unconstitutionally, hindering the public’s ability to participate in ballot initiative processes. The plaintiffs asked the court to certify the data center initiative for the November ballot.  The city-county government, represented by county attorney Matthew Enrooth, took no position and asked the court to determine how the election administrator should proceed. Enrooth did not respond to a request for comment by press time. In his Aug. 28 ruling, District Court Judge Frank Joseph rejected the plaintiffs’ constitutionality argument and denied their request to certify the initiative for the ballot. Joseph wrote that while the plaintiffs had gathered the requisite number of signatures before Aug. 14, there is no way of knowing whether the required number of signatures had been collected by July 13. He found that it was the plaintiffs’ responsibility to “read and understand the statute they were proceeding under.” “Yes, it appears true that Plaintiffs were provided with incorrect information regarding the law from the Defendants, but it does not relieve the Plaintiffs their obligation to read, understand, and apply the law as clearly written for all to see,” according to the order.  Kelly said she is “really disappointed” by the judge’s decision.  “We’re spending our time, we’re spending our money, we’re spending our energy to assert our constitutional rights,” she said. “It’s frustrating. We can’t even rely on our elected officials to do their jobs correctly. … It’s ludicrous to me, and I think the people of Butte are really frustrated.”  A similar signature-gathering effort in support of a similar ballot initiative was thwarted last month in Yellowstone County when the Yellowstone County attorney’s office released a memo saying its signature-gathering deadline had passed, citing the same statute referenced in Kelly’s lawsuit. Yellowstone County Attorney Scott Twito told Montana Free Press in August that the county’s revised deadline, also to July 13, was prompted by data center developer Quantica Infrastructure, which made Twito aware of the relevant state statute on July 30. The post Court rejects Butte data center ballot initiative  appeared first on Montana Free Press. ...read more read less