As we review Opponents' challenges herein, it is important to note that a successful challenge to a signature renders moot another challenge to that signature. Oklahomans for Alcoholic Beverage Controls, Inc. v. Shelton, 1972 OK 133, ¶ 15, 501 P.2d 1089, 1092. ¶ 6 Const. Art. 5, § 2 requires that the petition be signed by a number of legal voters equal to at least eight percent (8%) of "the total number of votes cast at the last general election for the State office receiving the highest number of votes at such election."

As we review Opponents' challenges herein, it is important to note that a successful challenge to a signature renders moot another challenge to that signature. Oklahomans for Alcoholic Beverage Controls, Inc. v. Shelton, 1972 OK 133, ¶ 15, 501 P.2d 1089, 1092. ¶ 6 Const. Art. 5, § 2 requires that the petition be signed by a number of legal voters equal to at least eight percent (8%) of "the total number of votes cast at the last general election for the State office receiving the highest number of votes at such election."

Both proponents and opponents of these initiative petitions have argued the constitutional questions. In considering the sufficiency of these petitions, this court was made cognizant of its statement as to consideration of the constitutionality of an initiative petition in Oklahomans for Modern Alcoholic Beverage Controls v. Shelton, 501 P.2d 1089 (1972). There Threadgill et al. v. Cross, 26 Okla. 403, 109 P. 558 (1919) was cited.

E.g. , Threadgill v. Cross , 1910 OK 165, ¶ 22, 109 P. 558, 563, 26 Okla. 403, 109 P. 558 ("If ... [the People] determine [the proposed amendment] to be a valid measure and adopt it, then, and not until then, will the judicial and executive departments have the power and duty devolving upon them to determine its validity and enforce its provisions."); In re Initiative Petition No. 10 of Okla. City , 1940 OK 43, ¶ 4, 186 Okla. 497, 98 P.2d 896, 897 ; In re Initiative Petition No. 259 , 1957 OK 167, ¶¶ 34–35, 316 P.2d 139, 146 ; Oklahomans for Modern Alcoholic Beverage Controls, Inc. v. Shelton , 1972 OK 133, ¶ 28, 501 P.2d 1089, 1095 ; see also In re Initiative Petition No. 349 , 1992 OK 122, ¶ 32, 838 P.2d 1, 11 (noting the 1975 shift).See United States v. Windsor , 570 U.S. 744, 789, 133 S.Ct. 2675, 186 L.Ed.2d 808 (Scalia, J., dissenting) (describing Alexis de Tocqueville's praise for our judicial system "as one which ‘intimately bind [s] the case made for the law with the case made for one man’ " and in which " ‘[t]he political question that [the judge] must resolve is linked to the interest’ of private litigants" (alterations in original) (quoting Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America 97 (H. Mansfield & D. Winthrop eds. 2000) ) ).

In rejecting the Secretary of State's defense to the mandamus request, the Threadgill Court reasoned that under the fundamental doctrine of separation of powers, the Court may not restrain the enactment of an unconstitutional law. ¶ 8 The erosion of the Threadgill's hard and fast rule against judicial construction of matters scheduled for submission to the voters was first forecast in 1972 — over thirty years ago — in the concurring in part and dissenting in part opinion to Oklahomans for Modern Alcoholic Beverage Controls, Inc. v. Shelton, 1972 OK 133, ¶ 4, 501 P.2d 1089 which stated: Hodges, J.

The only question is which percentage should be applied. Contestants' reliance on Oklahomans for Modern Alcoholic Beverage Controls, Inc. v. Shelton, Okla., 501 P.2d 1089 (1972) is not well taken for there we were concerned with questions regarding the constitutional and statutory provisions governing a circulator of an initiative petition. The Court found that the legislature did not intend to require circulators to be registered voters because the purposes of restrictions on signers of petitions and those on circulators are separate and distinct.

For examples of judicial review of ballot measures in Colorado and other jurisdictions, see Billings v. Buchanan, 192 Colo. 32, 555 P.2d 176, 176-79 (1976); Case v. Morrison, 118 Colo. 517, 197 P.2d 621, 621-24 (1948); Haraway v. Armstrong, 95 Colo. 398, 36 P.2d 456, 457-58 (1934); Miller v. Armstrong, 84 Colo. 416, 270 P. 877, 878-79 (1928); Oklahomans for Modern Alcoholic Beverage Controls v. Shelton, 501 P.2d 1089, 1091-95 (Okla. 1972); In re Referendum Petition No. 18 State Question No. 437, 417 P.2d 295, 296-98 (Okla. 1966); Community Gas Service Co. v. Walbaum, 404 P.2d 1014, 1015-17 (Okla. 1965). The State suggests that paid petition circulators may be too persuasive, or use irrelevant arguments, in convincing persons to sign the petitions.

Okla. Const. art. 5, §§ 1, 2. Prior to 1969, Oklahoma imposed no qualifications on petition circulators.Oklahomans for Modern Alcoholic Beverage Controls, Inc. v. Shelton, 501 P.2d 1089, 1092 (Okla. 1972). Beginning that year, Oklahoma law prescribed that petition circulators be qualified electors of the State of Oklahoma and imposed criminal liability on persons other than qualified electors who circulated petitions.

In the case of In re Supreme Court Adjudication of Initiative Petitions in Norman, Oklahoma No. 74-1 74-2, 534 P.2d 3, at p. 8 (Okla. 1975), this Court departed from the long held teaching of Threadgill v. Cross, 26 Okla. 403, 109 P. 558 (1910), and Oklahomans for Modern Alcoholic Beverage Control v. Shelton, 501 P.2d 1089 (Okla. 1972). As a result this Court considered the constitutionality of an initiative petition before it became law.

If it was impossible to decipher a signature, it was a nullity. Oklahomans for Modern Alcoholic Beverage Controls, Inc. v. Shelton, Okla., 501 P.2d 1089 (1972); Whitman v. Moore, 59 Ariz. 211, 125 P.2d 445 (1942). Reason tells us that an illegible name is the same as a blank line, not entitled to recognition and counting.