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Smoking Ban Signatures Challenged  

South Dakota's statewide smoking ban could go into effect after all and before the November 2010 election. The Tobacco Free Kids Network filed paperwork with the Secretary of State's office late Thursday afternoon contesting the petition to bring the smoking ban to a vote. They claim nearly 10,000 of the 25,000 signatures smoking ban opponents turned in are not valid.

The South Dakota Tobacco Free Kids Network reviewed every page of the petition, more than one thousand, line by line over the past five days. It says it found many of those signatures do not belong to registered voters and that 39 percent are not valid. If the Secretary of State agrees with them, the smoking ban may not appear on next year's ballot.

"It's a very painstaking process and that requires you to be very deliberate and thorough and detail oriented," Darrin Smith with the American Heart Association said.

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