Supporters of a proposed “equal rights” petition believe they have collected more than enough signatures to get the proposal on the November ballot.

Campaign leaders handed in 27 boxes of petitions bearing about 167,000 signatures, to the Secretary of State’s office Thursday afternoon,  

That’s 55,000 more than they need to get the proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot, and the second highest number of signatures collected on petitions in the past eight years, based on state records.

“Tens of thousands of Nebraskans want the opportunity to vote on the issues of preferences and discrimination,” said Marc Schniederjans, treasurer of the petition campaign, Nebraska Civil Rights Initiative.   

Campaign leaders said they also have collected signatures from  at least 5 percent of the voters in all 93 counties, far more than the 38 counties required under state law.

“The people of Nebraska have spoken loud and clear.  The citizens demand the opportunity to vote  on the use of race and gender preferences and discrimination  in state hiring, state contracting and state education,” he said.    

But opponents group will challenge the methods of circulators and validity of the signatures as election staff across the state check to make sure those who signed are registered voters.  

“Submitted signatures is not the same thing as valid signatures, said David Kramer, representing Nebraskans United. 

The opposing group says it has videos and audio recordings of petition circulators violating state law as they collect signatures, according to Kramer.   

“We certainly intend to provide the evidence that we've gathered about individual circulators and individual signatures to county clerks, election commissioners and the Secretary of State  so they can consider it in their validation process,” said Kramer.

Secretary of State John Gale will return petitions  to the counties in which they were collected for the validation process, which can take as long as 40 days.  

The proposed constitutional amendment would prohibit  granting any preferential treatment  based race, sex, race, ethnicity or  national origin in public education, employment or public contracting.

Schniederjans called preferential treatment “morally abhorrent.”

“It is not surprising that a wide majority of Nebraskans voters support ending these programs.”

Supporters point to University of Nebraska programs that give special hiring consideration to minorities or women.

Opponents point out that the ban would  apply to scholarships and programs that encourage men to go into  nursing programs, women into engineering programs.

Supporters say scholarships reserved for African Americans would be prohibited. Opponents note the amendment would also prohibit a University of Nebraska scholarship for Americans of German descent.   

Both groups have raised more than $400,000 during the signature-gathering phase of the petition drive.

Nebraskans United has spent more than $233,000.

The Nebraska Civil Rights Initiative spent about $461,000, on paid petition circulators and advertising, based on reports to the state at the end of June.  

Most of the money raised by supporters came from the California-based American Civil Rights Initiative, a national effort to ban racial and gender preference in hiring and admissions decisions.

Opponents got large donations of $50,000 each from wealthy Nebraskans Warren Buffett, Richard Holland and Dianne Lozier, all from Omaha.  

The University of Nebraska Foundation and the Nebraska State Education Association also each donated $25,000 to Nebraskans United.  

Reach Nancy Hicks at 473-7250 or nhicks@journalstar.com.