“Legal challenge to come against Oklahoma bill capping initiative petition signatures”

The Oklahoman covers (paywall) threats of litigation to a new Oklahoma requirement (with some comparisons to recent measures in other states restricting direct democracy) that restricts the number of signatures for an initiative coming out of any given county to a certain percentage of that county’s votes for governor in the last election  (20.8% for constitutional initiatives, 11.5% for statutory ones).  Oklahoma also has a 90-day signature-gathering period.

One of the ostensible justifications for the rules is protecting rural voters.  And it’s true that it’s impossible to reach the thresholds under the new structure with signatures only from Oklahoma City and Tulsa.  But using 2022 results, there’s also no way to meet the threshold for either constitutional or statutory provisions without Oklahoma City or Tulsa.  That is, even if you max out signatures from the 75 most rural counties, you can’t reach the statewide threshold to get anything on the ballot.

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