BANGOR (AP) – A campaign to ban slot machines in Maine is shooting to have a referendum on slots in 2006 rather than 2005 to allow more time to collect signatures to force a statewide vote.

Officials with No Slots for ME!, a Westbrook-based group seeking to overturn a law allowing slot machines at Bangor Raceway, said it has collected about half of the 50,519 signatures it needs by Jan. 20 to put the issue on the November 2005 ballot.

The group had concentrated its signature-gathering efforts at the polls in southern Maine where opposition to casino-style gambling is strongest.

Stephen Whiting, a Portland attorney coordinating the petition drive for No Slots for ME!, said the group would continue its efforts but has now set its sights on an Oct. 4, 2005, deadline to qualify for the November 2006 ballot.

“It looks like we’re going to have to go to churches to get the rest (of the signatures),” Whiting said.

Voters last year approved of a law allowing slots at Bangor Raceway, the only eligible site under the law.

Penn National Gaming, which holds a conditional license to run the slots, plans to have its $75 million facility with 1,500 slot machines up and running at the track in 2006.

“We’re hoping to do this without the continued threat of this small group of anti-gaming individuals,” said Penn spokesman Eric Schippers, when learning of the expected delay. “But it’s not going to alter our plans to move forward with this tremendous project.”

Doug Muir, a member of No Slots for ME!’s steering committee, said slot machines will create significant social and economic problems for Maine. He vowed to do “whatever it takes” to ban what some studies suggest is a highly addictive form of gambling.

“It’s a job that needs doing, but it seems like it’s going to be harder than we thought,” said Muir.

To counter the No Slots for ME! referendum, members of the Maine harness racing community proposed their own citizen initiative in October designed to protect the Bangor facility.

Denise McNitt, a spokesman for the harness racing association, said it did not circulate petitions at the polls on Election Day, instead opting to see how the opposing measure fared. McNitt said she wasn’t surprised by the anti-gambling group’s apparent difficulty collecting signatures.

“It’s pretty clear even the people who don’t want (slots) don’t want to go through this again,” McNitt said, dismissing the opposition’s argument that the matter did not get a fair hearing in 2003. “The voters have already decided.”