State organizations affiliated with Ward Connerly’s American Civil Rights Institute said today they had gathered more than enough signatures to get measures limiting affirmative-action preferences on the November ballot in Arizona and Nebraska.

With petitions having been submitted on behalf of a similar ballot measure in Colorado in March, there appears to be a good chance that three states will vote this fall on the proposals, all of which would bar public colleges and other state and local agencies from granting affirmative-action preferences in employment, contracting, and decisions related to education. Mr. Connerly, the institute’s chairman, had hoped to put similar measures on the ballot in Missouri and Oklahoma as well, but his organizations in those states failed to gather enough signatures before deadlines earlier this year.

Mr. Connerly’s Arizona organization, the American Civil Rights Initiative, announced today that it had submitted more than 330,000 petition signatures to state officials, well over 100,000 more than required under state law. His Nebraska organization, the Nebraska Civil Rights Initiative, announced that it had submitted more than 167,000 signatures, or at least 54,000 more than required.

A group that has opposed Mr. Connerly’s efforts in several states, the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration, and Immigrant Rights and Fight for Equality by Any Means Necessary, announced on Sunday that it would file a lawsuit — as well as complaints with various state officials — alleging that the petition signatures in Arizona had been gathered fraudulently. The group, known as Bamn, has filed a similar legal challenge to the signatures submitted in Colorado, which state officials certified in March. —Peter Schmidt