Joanne Young reports in the Lincoln Journal Star:
Secretary of State John Gale said Friday that Nebraska voters will decide if a law abolishing the death penalty is repealed or retained, and the repeal will be on hold until the vote in November 2016.In other words, they not only met the requirements, they cleared the hurdles by wide margins. Heartiest congratulations to the friends of justice in Nebraska!* * *At least 56,942 signatures were required to add the petition referendum to the ballot. Ten percent of registered voters' signatures, or at least 113,883, were required to keep the repeal from going into effect.
"More than 143,000 signatures were verified to our office from counties where signatures were collected, which was more than enough to meet each of those thresholds," explained Gale.
In addition, signatures of more than 5 percent of registered voters were collected in 85 of the state's 93 counties. This meets the constitutional distribution requirement of 38 counties for a referendum petition.
This is a hugely important fight. Our very democracy does not turn on having capital punishment--but it is a bit of a canary in a coal mine--if the media, academics and the judiciary can defeat the death penalty, what other part of our democracy can they destroy?