distribution requirement

A century-old Nebraska rule for initiative qualification has been struck down as unconstitutional by US District Court Judge Joseph F. Bataillon. The provision required signatures from “5% of registered voters of each of the 2/5ths of the counties in the state.” This meant that petitions for ballot measures were required to be circulated in at least 38 of the 93 counties in the Cornhusker State.

The plaintiff in the case, Kent Bernbeck, brought the suit claiming that under the now defunct rule, rural voters counted for more than voters in more urban areas. 

“The court finds that the facts presented in this case show clearly that urban votes are diluted under the Nebraska Constitution,” the judge stated in his opinion.

Nebraska’s threshold for placing initiatives and referendums on the ballot violates the Firsts Amendment in giving preference to voters in rural counties, a federal judge ruled.

At issue is a stipulation in the Nebraska Constitution that requires petitioners to acquire signatures from “5 percent of the registered voters of each of two-fifths of the counties of the state.”

According to this math, an initiative or referendum petition must be circulated in at least 38 of Nebraska’s 93 counties.

Plaintiff Kent Bernbeck, took issue with the requirement on the grounds of free speech and equal protection.

Read more: Here

Colorado’s leading opponent of citizen control of government, Rep. Lois Court (D-Denver), is at it again. Court is seeking to amend the state’s constitution to ratchet-up the requirements for citizen-initiated petitions — something she has attempted repeatedly during her tenure in the legislature.

Rep. Court’s House Concurrent Resolution 2 would fully double the minimum signature threshold for initiative constitutional amendments, from the current 86,104 to a whopping 172,208. The amendment would also impose a new distribution requirement, mandating that a minimum number of valid signatures be gathered from each of the state’s seven congressional districts to qualify a petition.

State lawmakers will try once again to place a measure onto the ballot to change the way ballot measures get onto the ballot.

Rep. Lois Court said she’s hopeful this time Colorado voters will agree that something needs to be done to protect the state’s Constitution from contradictory proposals that oftentimes aren’t written well, or have far-reaching unintended consequences.

The Denver Democrat, who is one of a long line of lawmakers regardless of political ilk to attempt such changes, hopes this effort will be more successful than previous attempts.

Unlike those efforts, including Referendum O in 2008 that lost by less than 3 percentage points, Court’s new idea would make only a few changes, and focuses only on proposed constitutional amendments.

Nebraska petition laws are again being challenged in federal court by Citizen Kent Bernbeck, who claims the current system is unconstitutional.  The two legal provisions being contested are: (1) the state’s county-based distribution requirement, which is in the state constitution, and (2) a state statute that forbids compensating paid circulators on a per-signature basis.

“He is bringing this challenge to guarantee all Nebraskans can participate in this core democratic process,” David Domina, Bernbeck’s attorney, told reporters. “A process so important that the founders of our nation called out the right as fundamental and to be preserved without intrusion.”

A veteran of multiple petition drives and lawsuits is taking on the state’s petition law once again.

Kent Bernbeck of Omaha filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday challenging two petition requirements as violations of his constitutional rights.

The first is a provision in the Nebraska Constitution requiring a geographic distribution of petition signers.

To make the ballot, an initiative petition must have signatures from at least 5 percent of voters in at least two-fifths, or 38, of Nebraska’s 93 counties.

Read More: here

The Idaho Legislature altered ballot measure rules earlier this year, making a successful petition campaign more difficult to achieve. Starting July 1, when Senate Bill 1108 goes into effect, it will be harder for Idahoans to gather enough signatures to place initiatives and referendums on the ballot.

Governor C. L. “Butch” Otter signed a bill into law on April 2 thatwill require petitioners to gather six percent of registered voters’ signatures from a minimum of 18 districts. Currently, petitioners must collect six percent of registered voters’ signature statewide. SB 1108 originally required each signature sheet to be separated by legislative district, but the statehouse quickly pushed through Senate Bill 1191 last month to remove that stipulation.

A good salesman can sell anything to anyone, even if what they’re selling would end up being detrimental in the long run. This is exactly what the Idaho Farm Bureau Federation has accomplished in the Gem State, according to Lewiston Tribune reporter William L. Spence.

The sale was completed when Governor Butch Otter’s signed Senate Bill 1108 into law on none-other-than April Fools Day.


By touting fears of urban-liberal agendas clogging citizen-initiated ballot measures, the Farm Bureau had been successful in selling the legislature a signature distribution requirement that will make Idaho’s petition process even more difficult than it already is.  In the last 77 years, only 35 initiatives have been put to a vote.

Idaho legislators, in a bid to backpedal from the thorny problems caused by passage of Senate Bill 1108, with its negative impact on the initiative and referendum petition process, have fast-tracked a new bill, Senate Bill 1191, to correct some of the vague and likely unconstitutional provisions legislators just enacted via passage of SB 1108. 

SB 1191 removes the requirement that each petition form contain only signatures from a single legislative district, opting to restore the past system whereby signatures are organized on separate sheets by county. This would eliminate extraneous paperwork and potential for errors that could lead to signatures being thrown out.

In a party-line vote this morning [ Wednesday, 6 March], the Republican majority of the State Senate Affairs Committee approved a bill that would alter the way Idaho initiatives are put on general election ballots.

Traditionally, petitions have required a percentage of the state’s registered voters, but Senate Bill 1108 would parse that process out by requiring 6 percent of voters from at least 18 legislative districts across the state.

For those who are wondering, the Senate State Affairs Committee didn’t vote this morning on SB 1108, the bill from the Idaho Farm Bureau to make it tougher to qualify initiatives or referendum measures for the Idaho ballot, in an attempt to increase the voice of rural residents in the process. For a second time the committee took testimony on the controversial bill, which would require signatures from 6 percent of voters in 18 of the state’s 35 legislative districts, instead of just 6 percent statewide, to make the ballot. But it ran out of time. Now, the vote has been pushed back

Read More: Here

According to state law, to get a referendum on the ballot, 6% of the state’s registered voters are required to sign a petition.

That’s not hard enough, says one lawmaker.

“Currently, you could easily gather all those signatures from a single location,” says Senator Curt McKenzie (R – Nampa). “Ya know, if an entity came in, paid people to gather signatures, you could get it from one spot in the state.”

McKenzie’s Senate Bill 1108 forces referendums to reach signature quotas in areas all around the state, not just one. But, Democrats say the bill is aimed at certain voters.

Read more Here

Oklahoma’s legislature wrapped up its 2011 legislative session Friday, and while the state still has arguably the toughest petition process in the nation, it didn’t get any tougher this year.

While the state ranked high on our grading scale, Missouri’s strange signature distribution requirement results in only two-thirds of a the state having a petition process, but an amendment pending in the Senate may change that.

A letter sent Wednesday to members of the Oklahoma House of Representatives by Citizens in Charge President Paul Jacob shows increasing criticism of a plan by some Oklahoma legislators to make state petition proponents gather signatures based on congressional districts instead of statewide.

CapitolBeatOK reports: