Associated Press Writer

North Dakota's fall lineup of ballot initiatives may include proposals to discourage smoking, cut income taxes, ban fenced hunting and revamp the administration of North Dakota's workers compensation agency.

Supporters of the workers compensation and hunting measures turned in their petitions Tuesday, hours before a midnight deadline arrived. The measures had to be submitted before the deadline to have a chance for a spot on the Nov. 4 general election ballot.

Advocates for the hunting initiative arrived at the Capitol shortly after 7 p.m. Tuesday, having arranged to get into the building after hours. Their initiative would prohibit the owners of a private, fenced game preserve from allowing paying customers to shoot deer, elk and other game inside the enclosure.

Gary Masching, of Bismarck, a member of the initiative's sponsoring committee, said the petition had 12,964 signatures, which is only 120 more than the minimum number of 12,844 that is needed to qualify for the ballot.

Roger Kaseman, of Linton, the initiative campaign's chairman, said supporters of the measure would be waiting to see if they made their goal. Lee Ann Oliver, the elections director in Secretary of State Al Jaeger's office, said a few hundred petition signatures are often disqualified during the monthlong petition review process.

"It's going to be nail-biting time," Kaseman said. "We'll just wait and hope for the best."

Earlier, supporters of the workers' compensation measure had delivered petitions bearing 15,544 names to Jaeger's office.

The initiative would allow the governor, rather than an appointed board of directors, to hire the director of Workforce Safety and Insurance. WSI provides medical insurance, lost wages and rehabilitation benefits for workers who are injured on the job.

The proposal also would prohibit WSI from unilaterally changing the decisions of administrative law judges in worker benefit appeals, and extend civil service protection to the agency's employees. Under current law, WSI workers may be dismissed for any reason.

The initiative campaign got underway in part because of opposition to the management style of WSI's former director, Sandy Blunt, who was forced out of his job last December. The agency's personnel troubles have gotten extensive publicity.

Stephen Little, a Bismarck attorney who drafted the initiative, said people who signed it were almost invariably enthusiastic about doing so.

"We didn't have any existing organization behind us, so it was a little difficult getting boots on the ground (to circulate petitions)," Little said. "But in terms of people's willingness to sign this petition, I was amazed.

"Probably 90-something out of 100 people were more than happy to sign it," Little said. "Some people wanted to sign more than once, but we wouldn't allow that."

The workers' compensation and fenced hunting petitions must be reviewed before they have a chance to qualify for the November ballot.

Jaeger is verifying two petitions that have already been submitted, which would reduce North Dakota's individual and corporate income tax rates and devote more state money from a tobacco company lawsuit settlement on efforts to discourage smoking.

The November ballot already has one measure in place - a proposed constitutional amendment that would establish a new trust fund for oil tax revenues. The 2007 Legislature ordered that the proposal be put to a statewide vote.

Supporters of four other proposed initiatives were not expected to make Tuesday's midnight filing deadline.

The measures sought to regulate the placement of oil pipelines, limit increases in state and local government spending, change North Dakota's child custody laws and require North Dakota's superintendent of public instruction to be a certified classroom teacher.