Oklahoma's Supreme Court struck down a 2025 law that limited how many signatures citizen ballot petitions could collect from any single county, ruling Tuesday that the restrictions were unconstitutional and void in their entirety. The decision wipes out Senate Bill 1027, which voters argued had made it nearly impossible to qualify future statewide ballot measures.
The ruling, issued Nov. 10, 2026, found that “S.B. 1027 is unconstitutional and void in its entirety and lacks legal enforceability,” according to the Oklahoma Policy Institute. As The Oklahoman reported, the case centered on whether the law's limits on the initiative petition process violated both the U.S. and state constitutions, a claim voters had raised when they challenged the legislation. The opinion was authored by Justice Noma Gurich and found the law unconstitutional on First Amendment grounds, per KOSU.
What the Law Actually Capped
Gov. Kevin Stitt signed SB 1027 on May 23, 2025, and it took effect immediately, the station's report notes. The law barred any one county from supplying signatures for a statutory initiative equal to more than 11.5% of the votes cast in that county in the most recent gubernatorial election, with the limit rising to 20.8% for a constitutional amendment.
KOSU also reported that counties with more than 400,000 residents faced a separate 10% signature cap, meaning Tulsa and Oklahoma counties together could supply no more than 20% of a petition's signatures despite containing nearly 37% of the state's residents, per the same account. Five Oklahoma voters filed suit over the caps, arguing they would deny millions of Oklahomans the right to sign a petition.
Scope of the Ruling
The Supreme Court's decision applies to future petitions but does not affect any ongoing efforts, KOSU reported. The court had separately found, in a related ruling described by the Oklahoma Policy Institute, that SB 1027 never applied to State Question 836, an effort to revise the state's primary system, because that petition had already been filed before the law passed.
Not every petition fared as well under the restrictions. Supporters of State Question 837, a recreational-marijuana measure, withdrew their petition on Nov. 4, 2025, citing an inability to gather the required number of signatures, according to KGOU.
Backers Cited Rural Input and Fraud Prevention
Supporters of SB 1027 said the law was needed to garner more input from rural counties and to prevent fraud, according to Oklahoma Voice. Attorney Zach West, defending the law in court, told Oklahoma Voice that about 15 of the 25 states with an initiative petition process use some form of geographic restriction.
A separate 2024 law, SB 518, had already tightened the signature-verification process, increasing from three to four the number of data points that must be checked against voter records, KOSU reported. That measure remains in place even as SB 1027's county caps have been wiped off the books.
