Opponents of affirmative action who had been working to put a measure on Oklahoma’s ballot this fall have filed a motion to withdraw their proposal from consideration, according to the Tulsa World.

The motion to withdraw the proposal — which would have asked the state’s voters to ban the use of racial, ethnic, and gender preferences by public colleges and other state and local agencies — said the ballot measure’s supporters did not believe that they had gathered enough signatures to qualify for the ballot, the newspaper said.

To get on the ballot, the petitioners would have needed 138,970 valid signatures. The Oklahoma secretary of state’s office counted 141,184 signatures on the petition but found a large number of duplicates.

The Oklahoma proposal was part of a national campaign by the prominent affirmative-action critic Ward Connerly, of the American Civil Rights Institute, to follow on his success in Michigan. Voters there overwhelmingly approved a similar ballot measure in 2006.

In addition to Oklahoma, Mr. Connerly and his supporters have eyed Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, and Nebraska as states where they are working to qualify ballot measures to end racial preferences. —Sara Hebel