Legal challenges were filed Wednesday aimed at a recent law that puts more restrictions on the process voters use to get issues on the ballot.
The suits were filed with the Oklahoma Supreme Court.
Gov. Kevin Stitt in May signed Senate Bill 1027, which took effect immediately.
The new law requires those circulating a petition for a statutory change to get signatures that amount to no more than 11.5% of the votes cast in a single county in the most recent gubernatorial election. The threshold increases to 20.8% for a constitutional amendment.
The law effectively forces signature gatherers to visit several Oklahoma counties rather than concentrating on high-population areas.
Prior to the law, there were no restrictions or caps on signatures from any county.
Under the new law, those seeking to place items on the ballot would be prohibited from paying petition circulators based on the number of signatures collected. The law requires sources of payment to circulators to be disclosed and bars out-of-state interests from donating.
Petition circulators would have to be registered voters.
It requires a political appointee, the Secretary of State, to approve the gist, which is the brief summary of the ballot measure that voters see at the top of the signature sheet.
One suit challenges the overall constitutionality of the law, saying it imposes an undue burden.
The suit seeks to put the law on hold until the legal dispute is resolved.
It says the law effectively nullifies "the right of the initiative petition" and violates the First Amendment.
It slashes the available signature pool by 95%, "making ballot qualification virtually impossible while advancing no legitimate state interest," the suit said.
The suit was filed by two proponents of State Question 836, which seeks to make Oklahoma primaries open. A rural voter and a member of a group that has been highly critical of plans to build a turnpike in the Norman area also are plaintiffs.
Secretary of State Josh Cockroft and Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond as defendants in both suits.
The second suit challenges the ability to make the law retroactive.
A petition seeking to open the state's primaries, State Question 836, is already in the works and was filed before the measure became law.
"This law doesn't just bend the rules in favor of powerful politicians — it breaks them entirely for Oklahoma voters," said Dr. Ken Setter, a plaintiff in both suits and proponent of State Question 836. "Oklahoma's Constitution gives us the right to petition our government. Senate Bill 1027 strips that right away."
The new law gives the executive branch veto power over citizen initiatives, the suit said.
The measure makes it more difficult and costly to get an issue on the ballot and would deter future efforts, the suit said.
When State Question 836 was filed, there were no geographic requirements for signatures and no caps, the suit said.
"Retroactive application of SB 1027 substantially undercuts Oklahoma citizens' ability to exercise their reserved right of initiative petition," the suit says.
The initiative petition process has been used to expand Medicaid, enact criminal justice reform and legalize medical marijuana.
Lawmakers have repeatedly declined to expand Medicaid or legalize medical marijuna.
Supporters of the new law have said it is needed to garner more input from rural counties and to prevent fraud.
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