State count of petitions delayed
Court must rule before permitless carry petitions are counted by secretary of state
The Oklahoma Supreme Court has asked organizers behind a petition to halt the state's new permitless carry law to provide a final count before it moves forward in reviewing a legal challenge to the petition effort.
On Thursday, petitions were submitted seeking to stop a new state law that would allow most Oklahomans to carry a gun without training or a license.
If 59,320 valid signatures are confirmed, it would also force a statewide vote on the issue next year.
Petition organizers said they believed they came close to reaching their goal despite collecting signatures over just a two-week period.
“People were bringing them in by the arm fulls, we just didn't have a chance,” to do a final count, said Joshua Harris-Till, one of the petition organizers.
Petition organizers said they had at least 50,000 signatures just a few hours before the deadline and were not sure how many were ultimately submitted.
Secretary of State Michael Rogers said his office would not begin counting the signatures until the state Supreme Court has a chance to review a legal challenge filed against the petition.
“Due to the current protest on file with the Oklahoma Supreme Court( case no. O -118200) regarding the constitutionality of State Question 803, Referendum Petition 26, our office must postpone the
details of a signature count until the Court has issued a final order / decision on such case. Official Court decisions on state question protests, often include instructions on how our office is to proceed on the matter,” Rogers said in a statement to The Oklahoman on Friday afternoon.
However, on Friday afternoon the Supreme Court asked the petition organizers to confirm how many signatures were turned in before moving forward.
The court also asked for a response to the challenge. Both responses are due by 5 p.m. Thursday.
“At this point we don' t have an exact number but we are reviewing ( t he court's) request and we are going to file a response more than likely on Tuesday,” said Rep. Jason Lowe, D-Oklahoma City, who spearheaded the petition effort.
The Oklahoma Second Amendment Association, 36 Republican legislators and other conservative groups filed a legal challenge to the referendum petition last week alleging the description of the referendum petition “set forth blatantly false, inaccurate, misleading deceitful and inflammatory statements in order to deceive voters into signing.”
Harris-Till said each petition included a copy of House Bill 2597 — which makes permitless carry legal effective Nov. 1 — to let Oklahomans read the bill before signing, so he isn't worried about the challenge before the state Supreme Court.
“They are trying to argue that Oklahomans can't read and know what they are signing, but they are capable of carrying around dangerous weapons,” Harris-Till said. “We are not worried about the validity of it.”