A Nebraska state court has upheld a ban on the use of affirmative-action preferences by public colleges and other state agencies that was overwhelmingly approved by the state’s voters in November.

Today’s Omaha World-Herald reports that Judge Karen Flowers of Lancaster County court ruled against Nebraskans United, a group that led opposition to the measure, in a lawsuit alleging improprieties in how signatures were gathered to get it on the ballot.

Judge Flowers held that, contrary to Nebraskans United’s claims, “the facts do not support a finding that there was any pervasive pattern and practice of fraud, misinterpretation, or deception” in the petition-gathering process. Nebraskans United can still appeal her decision to the Nebraska Supreme Court, but many observers there believe that Judge Flowers, a Democrat, represented the group’s best hope of getting the ban overturned.

Nebraska is one of five states where Ward Connerly, the prominent affirmative-action critic, had hoped to get such bans adopted last fall. Political analysts had predicted the measures would pass if they got on the ballot, but the state organizations promoting the measures failed to gather enough signatures to put them before voters in three of the states — Arizona, Missouri, and Oklahoma — and Coloradans defied many pollsters’ predictions by narrowly rejecting the measure proposed there.

The Colorado result has been attributed to high turnout among supporters of Barack Obama and to voters who, presented with an exceptionally long list of state ballot measures, responded by simply rejecting every one.

The group behind the proposed Missouri measure, the Missouri Civil Rights Initiative, has begun efforts to try again there in 2010. As was the case last year, however, the group has become caught up in a dispute with state officials over the wording of the title of the proposed measure. —Peter Schmidt