North Dakotans will vote in November on a constitutional amendment to limit marriage rights to man-woman couples, Secretary of State Al Jaeger says.

Jaeger on Wednesday said a petition that requires a statewide vote on the amendment had 42,093 legal signatures, considerably more than the 25,688 names needed to put the idea on the statewide ballot.

The North Dakota Family Alliance, a Bismarck group that supervised the initiative campaign, had said it collected more than 52,000 petition signatures. Jaeger said his office counted 44,105 names, and rejected 1,647 signatures for various reasons, including incomplete signatures and addresses and notary errors.

Jaeger said the difference in signature counts was irrelevant. "Our main goal is just to make sure there's enough names," he said.

The amendment would deny any state legal recognition to same-sex marriages or civil unions, an option considered a legal alternative for gay and lesbian couples who seek the rights normally conferred on married people.

Its text reads: "Marriage consists only of the legal union between a man and a woman. No other domestic union, however denominated, may be recognized as a marriage or given the same or substantially equivalent effect." It will be listed as Measure 1 on the November ballot.

John Trombley, of Fargo, chairman of the Family Alliance, said the organization has not planned an extensive advertising effort to support the measure.

"Probably, it's going to be on the low-key side," Trombley said. "It's not like we have a lot of money, or for that matter, any money, to take on any big campaign. So we're going to use whatever free methodology that we possibly can to continue to encourage and educate folks."

Robert Uebel, chairman of Equality North Dakota, which advocates for gay and lesbian rights, said opponents of the measure are trying to raise money to encourage a "no" vote on the proposal. State Rep. Mary Ekstrom, D-Fargo, is hosting a fund-raiser Sept. 23 for the campaign, Uebel said.

Amendment opponents will be writing newspaper letters to the editor, promoting debates on the measure and doing some advertising, Uebel said.

"The numbers aren't there for us. That's no lie, that's just the reality. We know that," he said. "But we also think that the support (against the amendment) is growing, and I think public opinion is shifting very quickly."

The issue has already arisen in North Dakota's campaigns for Congress, where the incumbent Democrats, Sen. Byron Dorgan and Rep. Earl Pomeroy, have spoken against a federal constitutional amendment to reserve marriage rights to man-woman couples. GOP Senate candidate Mike Liffrig and House candidate Duane Sand have supported efforts to amend both the federal and state constitutions to forbid recognition of same-sex marriages.

A Liffrig campaign ad, which began airing this week, briefly depicts two men at the altar preparing to kiss as "Here Comes the Bride" plays in the background. "With Sen. Dorgan now supporting gay marriages … you can kiss our North Dakota values goodbye. Or we can kiss Dorgan goodbye," an announcer says.

Dorgan has denounced the ad as dishonest, pointing to his vote for a federal law that refuses to recognize homosexual marriages.

At least nine other states are voting on similar constitutional amendments in November - Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, Oklahoma, Oregon and Utah.

Initiative petitions in Ohio are still being verified, and in Louisiana, the state Supreme Court is considering whether to allow a Sept. 18 vote on a state marriage amendment.

Last month, Missouri voters approved a marriage amendment, with 71 percent of the voters supporting it.