The tobacco tax proposition will not appear on this November’s ballot. The Secretary of State’s Office has announced the sponsors of the petition failed to meet requirements for getting the question on the ballot. The Missouri Constitution required them to collect a certain number of signatures from six of the state’s nine Congressional Districts. The problem occurred in one of the six chosen by supporters – the Second District in the St. Louis area. Election officials there rejected more than two-thousand of the signatures that had been collected, leaving proposition organizers short. Supporters will now have to reorganize and start from scratch in an effort to place the measure on a future ballot in 2003 or beyond. But, it is too late for this year.
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