Ballot Initiatives Start with Petitions
Hey guys, how are you doing? I’m Tulsa attorney Isaiah Brydie coming at you guys with a video and these videos are going to be all about State Question 807 and 808. Now with 807, of course, everyone knows about the whole fiasco with State Question 806 and its initial filing and then its withdrawal. 807 is the State Question in which the drafters of 806 revised 806 and then resubmitted it to the Oklahoma Secretary of State.
808 on the other hand, is a new State Question that’s a lot shorter than 806 and a lot more straight to the point as far as what it does and is really short in and of itself as far as with all it entails.
This first video is actually going to be about the State Question process. How a proposed State Question goes from being a proposal into law and then subsequent videos from this are going to cover the subsistence of State Question 808 and 807.
Getting into this video a State Question of course starts out as a draft proposal by voters. Registered voters draft up the document and then it is submitted to the Oklahoma Secretary of State for publication. That publication gives notice to the general voting public and also to the State Board of Election and the governors’ office of the proposed State Question. That State Question then has a 10 day challenge period where other voters can file a challenge to the proposed State Question to the Oklahoma Supreme Courts Office. That’s within 10 days of the initial filing of the State Question.
After that there is the circulation period. After the State Question has been submitted and filed with the Secretary of State, after that protest period has passed, then the Secretary of State will issue out a day for the proponents of the State Question to actually get signatures for the State Question. The State Question here, which is an initiative, has to get a corresponding 15 percent of the eligible voters in the state of Oklahoma to sign on to being proponents of the petition. The proponents of the State Question will have 90 days in order to get those signatures.
Once those signatures are got, then the State Question goes into the ballot review phase where the Oklahoma Attorney General will go in and review the ballot question, how it appears on the ballot. The Oklahoma Supreme Court will then go in and review and count the signatures and make sure that they’re appropriate and adequate and that they’ve met that threshold that they need to meet.
After that period has elapsed, then the actual State Question will be voted on in the next general election for the state and either affirmed by the voters, or denied by the voters. And then after it is affirmed by the voters, then that State Question will go into law at a later date.
That is the process for how a State Question goes from being a proposal, into a actual law and then be sure you guys tune back in to my later videos to get my synopsis of State questions 807 and 808. My phone number is 918-932-2800. Feel free to give me a call.
Correction: As a ballot initiative that would create a Constitutional amendment, petitioners would be required to obtain signatures from 15 percent of voters in the most recent gubernatorial election. In the video I inadvertently stated the requirement is for 8 percent of those voters – which is the requirement for a ballot initiative that would create a statute. For clarity, we have updated the transcript to reflect the correct percentage of voters signatures required.