Supporters of the state wide smoking ban are challenging the validity of signatures on a petition that would bring the state wide smoking ban to a public vote on a November 2010 ballot.

The state wide ban was supposed to go into effect this week - until the signatures were filed on a petition. Now the ban to keep smoking out of bars might not go to a public vote after all.

The American Heart Association is crying foul over nearly 10,000 signatures gathered to put the issue on the ballot.

Darrin Smith with the American Heart Association said, "They do not have the minimum number of legitimate valid signatures to qualify for the ballot and that is precisely that challenge that we're using today."

But one of the people who helped get the issue to a public vote believes the signatures will stand.

Larry Mann of Video Lottery Establishments of South Dakota said, "I feel confident that the law, the statute that the secretary uses to validate those signatures was complied with."

But Darin Smith disagrees and says the discrepancies are big enough to overturn the petition right now.

"The most common reason for the nearly 10,000 invalid signatures were very simply, several thousand people who signed the petition sheets were not registered voters," he said.

Larry Mann counters, "Politics is a strange thing and I can't imagine this would be overturned, but if it is, we'll have to discuss it at that time."

Meanwhile smokers who stop at bars across the stae for a drink or dinner are still free to light up.

But if the Secretary of State agrees that enough signatures are invalid, South Dakota's smoking ban could go into effect immediately.

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