Opponents of a casino at Arundel Mills mall appear to have enough signatures to force a voters' referendum in November that could block the largest site of the state's fledging slots effort.

According to its Web site, the Anne Arundel County Board of Elections has accepted 19,054 signatures - more than the necessary 18,970 - on a petition to place a slots referendum on the fall ballot. The petition seeks to overturn a hard-won zoning measure to allow a 4,750-machine parlor to be built on a mall parking lot.

Slots opponents submitted 40,407 signatures. The elections board has until March 25 to complete the validation process, at which time the board would certify the accepted signatures.

"We have in excess of the threshold at this juncture," said Tom Chuckas, president of the Maryland Jockey Club, which financed the referendum effort sponsored by Citizens Against Slots at the Mall. "This says to us that the people who signed the petition believe that the facility is not properly located at a mall. We supported a position that was supported by Anne Arundel County residents. The referendum will stand and win."

The referendum effort still faces hurdles. Baltimore-based Cordish Cos., the casino developer, sued the elections board last month, contending that the board failed to detect what the suit characterized as widespread fraud in the petition drive. A judicial review could take months. The county state's attorney has forwarded the allegations to the state prosecutor's office.

The suit calls Citizens Against Slots "a sham entity that is nothing more than a stooge of the Maryland Jockey Club." Magna Entertainment Corp., owner of Laurel Park, bid for the county's sole slots facility license but was rejected because it didn't pay the required state fees. Instead, the state awarded the license to Cordish, which in its suit contends that the Jockey Club has a "substantial financial interest" in overturning the company's slots license.

Chuckas said the lawsuit was based on "totally false allegations."

David Cordish, president of the Cordish Cos, said in an interview that there's "almost no chance" of the petition reaching the ballot, and his company is proceeding "full speed ahead. I haven't been surprised yet in this process, and I don't think I will be."

"The odds are overwhelming that the petitions will be held by the courts to be invalid," said Cordish.

Joseph Weinberg, a vice president at Cordish, said the petition is full of "fraud, forgery and misrepresentations," and pointed to the number of signatures rejected by the board as evidence of the "overall lack of credibility of the petition submittal."

"Our lawsuit addresses extensive, systematic irregularities in the petition collection process which the board of elections admittedly did not consider and we are confident that once the court reviews the evidence, the entire petition will be invalidated for failing to meet the minimum signature requirements," said Weinberg in an e-mail response to a request for comment.

Heather Ford, coalition coordinator for Citizens Against Slots, said Thursday that she was "confident" that voters would repeal the zoning ordinance.

"Neither two blizzards nor a baseless lawsuit could deter the groundswell of Anne Arundel County citizens determined to take this matter to referendum," said Ford. "People want the slots zoning ordinance on the ballot."

The elections board's attorney, James Praley, said that while meeting the signature threshold is "an accomplishment" for the anti-slots coalition, the judicial review requested by Cordish will take three to four months to conclude.

"It's an accomplishment for them," said Praley. "If they hadn't gotten to that number, the process would have stopped. Now the question is, what happens in court?"

Cordish received approval last year from state and county officials to build the 4,750-machine slots facility on the parking lot of Arundel Mills mall in Hanover. Homeowners who live near the mall vowed to get a ballot referendum to stop the project and teamed with the Maryland Jockey Club, which hired a private company to collect signatures for a referendum on the ballot to overturn the county zoning approval. The jockey club has financed most of the effort.

On Feb. 4, the coalition submitted 23,702 signatures to the board of elections. On March 5, the group submitted another 16,702 signatures. The elections board has 20 days from the final submission date to certify the signatures.

"On behalf of everyone who worked so tirelessly to gather the signatures, we are delighted at today's news," said Rob Annicelli, president of the citizens group Stop Slots at Arundel Mills. "The referendum was a daunting task, but the clear will of so many citizens in Anne Arundel County has been confirmed today."