Signatures gathered on ballot initiatives

Bay State voters are likely to decide this November whether to ban dog racing, legalize wine sales at food stores, and allow cross-party voting.

Backers of initiative petitions pushing those causes said they had collected enough validated signatures to qualify for this year's election, which is likely to attract a high number of voters because of the governor's race.

The deadline for petitions was 5 p.m. yesterday, when campaigns needed to file 10,971 municipally certified signatures with Secretary of State William F. Galvin's office.

``An Act to Protect Dogs," which would ban greyhound racing and crack down on dogfighting, garnered about 35,000 signatures , said Christine Dorchak, chairwoman of the sponsoring committee.

``We've already been told by one of the people counting that we've made it," Dorchak said.

That petition is opposed by racetracks and unions, which say it will cost the state revenue and jobs.

Christopher Flynn, director of the Massachusetts Food Association, said his group filed most of its 13,936 signatures on wine sales last week.

The cross-party voting initiative would allow voters from minor parties to back candidates from the major parties with a second ballot line.

``As of last week, we had been notified that we had 13-plus [thousand] validated," said Jim Fleischmann, director of the Massachusetts Ballot Freedom Campaign.