Welcome to the Monday, June 2, 2025, Brew.
By: Lara Bonatesta
Here’s what’s in store for you as you start your day:
- Oklahoma adopts pay-per-signature ban, residency requirement, signature distribution requirement, and funding disclosure rules for citizen initiatives
- Nevada Governor vetoes drop box bill
- Did you know that five states have banned ranked-choice voting (RCV) in 2025?
Oklahoma adopts pay-per-signature ban, residency requirement, signature distribution requirement, and funding disclosure rules for citizen initiatives
On May 27, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) signed Senate Bill 1027 (SB 1027), approving changes to the state’s initiative and referendum processes. The bill passed in the Oklahoma Legislature with all Democrats voting against it and all but six Republicans voting for it.
So far this year, legislators in 49 states have passed 64 bills to change ballot measure processes, including six that governors vetoed. Senate Bill 1027 is one of 40 such bills that had majority support from Republicans. Two bills had majority support from Democrats, and 22 had bipartisan support.
The Oklahoma law establishes new petition sheet requirements, signature distribution requirements, prohibits pay-per-signature, and requires signature gatherers to be Oklahoma residents. Below, we’ll look at each of those sections and give an early review of the state’s 2026 ballot measures.
Distribution requirements
In Oklahoma, the number of signatures required to put an initiative on the ballot is based on the number of votes cast in the last gubernatorial election: 15% for constitutional initiatives (172,993 for 2026), 8% for statutory initiatives (92,263 for 2026), and 5% for veto referenda (57,664 for 2026).
Before SB 1027, Oklahoma did not have any requirements dictating that certain amounts of signatures come from certain counties or districts.
SB 1027 establishes a distribution requirement limiting the number of signatures collected from a single county to 11.5% of the votes cast in the county in the last gubernatorial election for statutory initiatives and 20.8% for constitutional initiatives.
Oklahoma is the 17th state with an initiative process to enact a signature distribution requirement.
Residency requirements
SB 1027 also made Oklahoma the ninth state with an initiative process to require signature gatherers to be registered voters in that state.
The other states with residency requirements are Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, and Utah. Along with Oklahoma, Florida also enacted a residency requirement in 2025.
Pay-per-signature ban
SB 1027 also prohibits signature gatherers from being paid per signature, making Oklahoma the 10th state to enact such a ban.
The nine other states with these bans are Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Montana, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming.
Out-of-state signature collection funding ban
Under SB 1027, entities funding initiative signature-gathering campaigns must submit weekly reports to the secretary of state detailing the expenditures and attesting that the funds are not from out of state.
Arguments from state legislators
House Speaker Kyle Hilbert (R-29), who sponsored the legislation in the House, said, “For too long, rural Oklahomans have been left out of deciding what state questions appear on the ballot. That ends now. This critical legislation improves the integrity of the initiative petition process by empowering voters from all parts of the state to stay engaged every step of the way.”
State Sen. Carri Hicks (D-40) said the bill “threatens something fundamental, our freedom as Oklahomans to decide on what kind of state we want to live in.”
Petition sheet statement
Before SB 1027, petition sheets had to include a “simple statement of the gist of the proposition.”
SB 1027 requires these statements to explain the proposition’s effect in basic words and prohibits words not commonly known to the state’s citizens. It also requires that statements not “contain any argument for or against the measure.”
Statements would also be required to indicate whether the proposition will have a fiscal impact and describe funding sources, among several other requirements.
Initiatives in Oklahoma
One initiative has been certified for Oklahoma’s June 16, 2026, ballot. State Question 832 would increase the state minimum wage from $7.25 (the federal minimum wage) to $15 per hour by 2029.
Two other initiatives have been filed targeting the November 2026 ballot. One is a constitutional amendment that would establish an open primary system for statewide and county offices. The other would create a constitutional right for people aged 21 and older to purchase, possess, and consume marijuana in any form.
From 2014 to 2024, eight citizen initiatives appeared on the ballot, of which four were approved and four were defeated.
Nevada Governor vetoes drop box bill
On May 22, Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo (R) vetoed AB 306, a bill that would have increased the availability of mail ballot drop boxes and added new security requirements for maintaining them.
Under current law, county clerks must make a ballot drop box available at every polling location while that polling place is open, including early voting locations. AB 306 would have required clerks to make drop boxes available between the end of early voting and the day before Election Day.
The bill would have tied the number of drop boxes to county population, requiring at least 10 drop boxes in counties with more than 700,000 people and at least five in counties with more than 100,000 people. In counties with fewer than 100,000 people, it would have given clerks discretion to decide the number and hours of drop box availability.
It also would have required clerks to monitor all drop boxes while they are available and to secure them while not in use. The secretary of state would have been required to establish rules to conform with those requirements.
The Democratic-sponsored legislation passed the Nevada Legislature largely along party lines. One Republican in the state Assembly voted for the bill. Nevada has a divided government. Democrats have a 13-8 majority in the state Senate and a 27-15 majority in the state Assembly. Lombardo is a Republican.
Supporters of the bill said it would alleviate the administrative burden of processing mail ballots on Election Day, which would provide more options for voters and lead to quicker reporting of election results. Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar (D) attributed slow results after the 2024 general election to the number of ballots returned to drop boxes on Election Day. Mail ballots require additional administrative action before they are counted compared to ballots cast in person.
In 2020, Nevada lawmakers adopted new rules allowing election administrators to process and count mail ballots during the two weeks before Election Day. But, in 2024, a majority of the 67,397 ballots returned on Election Day in Clark County — Nevada’s most populous county — were deposited in a drop box. Nevada is one of 10 states that explicitly allow election officials to process mail ballots at least two weeks before a general election or primary.
Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager (D) said the bill “aimed at ensuring that voters, especially working families, seniors, and those with disabilities, have secure and accessible ways to return their mail ballots between the end of early voting and election day, allowing election workers to count votes quicker.”
In his veto message, Lombardo said the bill didn’t do enough to improve security or provide quicker election results: “AB 306 appears to be well-intentioned but falls short of its stated goals while failing to guarantee appropriate oversight of the proposed ballot boxes or the ballots cast. I believe additional election reforms should be considered as part of a larger effort to improve election security, integrity and allow Nevada to declare winners more quickly.”
Nevada is an all-mail voting state. Twenty-eight states explicitly permit voters to return completed ballots to a drop box, while 12 states either explicitly prohibit them or do not include them as a valid means to return a ballot. Of those 12 states, all but one — North Carolina, which does not list drop boxes as an approved return method — have Republican trifectas in control of state government.
To learn more about why some states count and report election results faster than others, click here.
Did you know that five states have banned ranked-choice voting (RCV) in 2025?
Since the beginning of the year, governors in Wyoming, West Virginia, Kansas, North Dakota, and Arkansas have signed legislation prohibiting RCV from being used in state or local elections.
- Sixteen states now ban RCV statewide.
- Three states—Alaska, Maine, and Hawaii—use RCV statewide in at least some elections.
Hawaii adopted RCV for some statewide elections in 2022. It is the most recent state to pass legislation or approve a ballot measure supporting RCV. RCV is also used in some municipal elections. Fourteen states have localities that use or are scheduled to use RCV.
RCV allows voters to rank candidates by preference on their ballots. If no candidate wins a majority of first-preference votes, the candidate with the fewest first-preference votes is eliminated. Ballots that ranked a failed candidate as their first, or highest choice, depending on the round, are then reevaluated and counted as first-preference ballots for the next-highest-ranked candidate in that round. The process is repeated until a candidate wins an outright majority.
Click here to access Ballotpedia’s RCV hub for information on how the system works, where it is used, its history in the United States, and debates over its use.