On March 28, a US District Court ruled the county distribution requirement for initiatives in Montana to be void. Montana Public Interest Research Group v Brown, cv03-183-M. The decision was no surprise. Ever since 2000, when the US Supreme Court issued Bush v Gore, lower courts have been ruling that county distribution requirements for statewide petitions of all kinds are unconstitutional. Requiring a certain number of signatures from each county gives more power to voters in low-population counties than in urban counties.

The only state that still has a county distribution requirement for candidate petitions is Pennsylvania, which imposes them on candidates seeking a place on a primary ballot for statewide state office.