Oklahoma Supreme Court throws out the 2025 law that capped petition signatures by county

OKLAHOMA CITY (Nov. 11) — The Oklahoma Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down a 2025 law that put new limits on how citizens get questions onto the state ballot, ruling 5-4 that it violated free speech protections.

Senate Bill 1027 was signed in May 2025, but the court put it on hold that September while the challenge played out. The law capped how many signatures could count from any one county, based on that county's turnout in the last governor's race, required people collecting signatures to be registered Oklahoma voters, banned paying them by the signature, and barred out-of-state money for petition drives, KTUL reported. It also added new rules for the "gist," the short summary at the top of each petition.

Justice Noma Gurich wrote the majority opinion, joined by Justices James Winchester, James Edmondson, Douglas Combs and Richard Darby. The court declared the entire law void instead of saving some parts, so the petition rules in place before SB 1027 apply again.

Gurich used Harmon County to show how the caps would work. It had 1,378 registered voters as of Jan. 1, she wrote, and under the law only 75 could have signed a given statutory petition, out of more than 92,000 signatures needed statewide, NonDoc reported. "Never before have legal Oklahoma voters been outright prohibited from signing an initiative or referendum petition," she wrote, concluding the law "severely disenfranchises voters in all 77 counties."

The bill's Senate author, Sen. David Bullard, R-Durant, has said he wanted rural counties to have more say in which petitions succeed. The majority found the caps would have the opposite effect, making it unlikely signature gatherers would bother with small counties at all.

In dissent, Justice Dana Kuehn wrote that some parts of the law conflict with the state constitution but don't violate the U.S. Constitution, because people can still sign; some signatures just wouldn't be counted once a county hit its limit, KOSU reported. The four dissenters would have kept some provisions, including the county caps.

The ruling applies to future petitions. According to KOSU, every initiative petition filed since the law passed has either been withdrawn or struck down by the court.