Dane County residents rejected a Ho-Chunk Nation proposal to expand the DeJope Bingo Hall into a casino by about a 2-1 margin Tuesday.
Votes rejecting the casino totaled 95,530 — 64 percent of all votes — while those in favor of the casino made up 51,543 votes, 36 percent of the total.
Ho-Chunk legislator John Dall said the Ho-Chunk Nation was unhappy with the results. “We are disappointed it didn’t go through as planned,” Dall said.
Controversy surrounding the proposal continued up to the end. Madison and Dane County leaders, namely Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk and Mayor Dave Cieslewicz, continued to argue about the solidity of the revenue agreements with the Ho-Chunk as residents started to cast their votes Tuesday.
Although Cieslewicz rejected casino expansion, David Relles, leader of No Dane Casino, said he and other members of the group were not expecting the large margin of victory.
“I am shocked,” Relles said, attributing most of his surprise to the fact that No Dane Casino was outspent by the Ho-Chunk Nation by more than $1 million.
No Dane Casino campaigned by sending e-mails, making phone calls, distributing flyers and buttons, posting their “CasiNO” message on billboards throughout the county and airing one television commercial. The 10-week-old grassroots campaign spent about $60,000 on the campaign.
“I recently spoke to a group of 11 people in the living room of a Dane County resident in an attempt to spread the word to vote ‘no’ to the casino,” Relles said.
While Relles was campaigning in living rooms, the Ho-Chunk Nation’s message to vote “yes” on the casino proposal aired on local television stations at an increasing rate.
The Ho-Chunk Nation spent at least $1.3 million on their campaign, most of it for television commercials. The Ho-Chunk campaign was the most expensive in Dane County history.
In a last-minute attempt to gain voter approval, the Coalition for the Fair Indian Gaming and Revenue Sharing Agreements recently sent out a mailing to Dane County residents that appeared as a pro-casino editorial from the Wisconsin State Journal.
The Ho-Chunk campaign rearranged the editorial to make it seem as though it was in favor of the casino. The campaign did not receive the approval of the Wisconsin State Journal to use the published piece and also did not have the publisher’s approval to use the newspaper’s logo, which was displayed on the mailing.
In response to the mailing, the Wisconsin State Journal editorial board, which endorsed the casino, published a statement expressing their disappointment in the campaign strategy of the Ho-Chunk Nation; nonetheless they maintained their support for the group.
Dall said the Ho-Chunk Nation does not foresee the rejection as an end to the Nation’s relationship with the city or the county.
“We are down but not out,” Dall said. “We lost this battle but there are still other options; we will still work on other issues.”
Dall said the decision of the Ho-Chunk Nation to not pursue a second referendum regarding the casino still stands.
Gov. Jim Doyle, who has the power to allow the Ho-Chunk Nation to turn DeJope into a casino, said he will abide by the results of the vote.
