Opponents of an effort to ban racial and gender preferences in Nebraska announced their latest legal maneuver Friday — the same day Secretary of State John Gale was due to certify the Nov. 4 election ballot.

University of Nebraska-Lincoln student Jeff Hall and 2008 UNL graduate Eva Sohl filed a lawsuit in Lancaster County District Court Thursday challenging the validity of 40,228 petition signatures gathered to help place the affirmative-action ban on the ballot.

Hall and Sohl say they have evidence the signatures were gathered fraudulently and that they should be thrown out.

But the Secretary of State’s office said Friday Gale has included the affirmative-action ban, dubbed the Nebraska Civil Rights Initiative, on the ballot.

That means if Hall and Sohl’s lawsuit succeeds, votes on the affirmative-action ban simply won’t be counted.

“This challenge is about respect for the laws of Nebraska,” said David Kramer, campaign director and lead counsel for Nebraskans United, the pro-affirmative action group with which Hall and Sohl are affiliated.

“In order to protect Nebraska’s Constitution from attack by out-of-state interests and in order to protect the integrity of Nebraska’s initiative process, Hall and Sohl have brought suit to expose the widespread pattern and practice of fraud perpetrated on Nebraska citizens during the recent signature-gathering period,” Kramer said in announcing the lawsuit.

Nebraskans United previously has presented video, photo and audio evidence the group says proves signature-gatherers for the Nebraska Civil Rights Initiative committed petition fraud by leaving petitions unattended, failing to read the initiative’s full “object statement” and other violations.

For example, Hall and Sohl’s court filings claim one petitioner in Hayes County fraudulently told voters they could sign for their spouses.

Nebraska Civil Rights Initiative executive director Doug Tietz dismissed the lawsuit as a last-ditch effort aimed at stifling voters’ voices.

“This is eleventh-hour. This is 11:59 p.m. is what it is,” Tietz said. “To call this a lawsuit does a disservice to lawsuits.”

Tietz has repeatedly said all signature-gatherers were properly trained.

“We set up a training program to make sure they did it right,” he said.

The initiative needed about 112,000 petition signatures to qualify for the ballot. Initiative leaders submitted about 170,000 signatures to Gale’s office in July, and last month, Gale announced 136,589 were valid, easily enough to put the initiative before voters.

But Kramer vowed then his group would keep fighting.

Hall, in fact, has taken the issue to court once before: In July, he asked a judge to amend the wording of the Nebraska Civil Rights Initiative to explicitly say that it would ban programs that provide opportunities for women and minorities, rather than simply saying it would prohibit racial and gender preferences.

But the judge kept the initiative’s wording intact.

Similar bans on race- and gender-based affirmative action have passed in California, Michigan and Washington.

Five more states — Nebraska, Colorado, Arizona, Missouri and Oklahoma — were targeted this year, but the initiatives remain alive only in Nebraska and Colorado.

Supporters say the need for racial and gender preferences has passed. Opponents, including many leaders at the University of Nebraska, say affirmative action programs are necessary to help maintain diversity and that a ban could send a negative message to out-of-staters.

Reach Melissa Lee at 473-2682 or mlee@journalstar.com.