AUGUSTA (AP) – None of the five citizen initiatives that sought petitions during the November election in Maine produced enough signatures to force a statewide vote this year.

The deadline for submitting signatures to the secretary of state’s office passed at 5 p.m. Thursday with no petitions submitted, said Doug Dunbar, assistant secretary of state.

Mary Adams, leader of a campaign to limit state spending, said she decided against trying to get her proposal on the November ballot. Instead, she said she would submit her signatures by Oct. 21 in hopes of getting onto the November 2006 ballot.

Adams said Thursday that she would let lawmakers finish their work on Gov. John Baldacci’s property tax relief message, which she dubbed a “turkey.”

“We’ll wait out this session in favor of a time when the eagle can rise and lead the way out of the mess the over-spenders have created,” she said.

A separate tax reform proposal promoted by the Maine State Chamber of Commerce was withdrawn on the eve of the deadline, and the chamber announced that it would endorse a reworked version of Baldacci’s property tax relief package.

Three other proposals failed to muster the minimum number of signatures – 50,000 – by Thursday’s deadline, officials said.

The other proposals would have imposed a tax on bottled water drawn from Maine aquifers, promoted passage of an amendment defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman, and banned slot machines at commercial harness-racing tracks.

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