However, she predicted that if it gets on the ballot the voucher law will still not be voted down "based on the merits of the issue," and the group plans to launch a campaign to further inform citizens on vouchers.

"The next phase is getting out there face to face and talking to people — when people really understand the issue instead of just what's been told to them by somebody who is in education they say, 'Oh, I get it,"' Pomeroy said.

"No one is trying to kill public education, just because you are for one doesn't mean you are against the other — they are not mutually exclusive," she said.

Although the governor has said that if the issue makes it onto the ballot he'd prefer the election be as soon as possible, he's now decided to wait for the next scheduled statewide election.

"Just because it is such an expensive process, we would prefer to do it when there's already a statewide election being held," Huntsman spokeswoman Lisa Roskelley said Monday. The price tag for a statewide election is about $3.5 million.

So instead of the late June election date initially proposed by the governor, Roskelley said the issue likely would not go before voters until next year. That could be during the state's Feb. 5 presidential primary, if lawmakers agree to add it to that ballot.

Otherwise, the next regularly scheduled statewide election is set for November 2008.

Senate Majority Leader Curt Bramble, R-Provo, the Senate sponsor of the bill the referendum seeks to repeal, said he'd prefer to wait until November 2008 rather than pay for a special election statewide.

If the lieutenant governor certifies the referendum for the ballot at the end of the month, the bill that it seeks to repeal, HB148, would be stayed from taking effect until the issue is decided by voters, according to John Fellows, deputy general counsel to the Legislature.

Complicating the issue, however, is the fact that lawmakers included much of the same language that's in HB148 in another bill passed last session that is not the subject of a referendum.

That bill, HB174, could not be repealed by voters because it was approved by more than a two-thirds majority in both the House and the Senate. It is set to take effect on April 30, Fellows said, unless a court steps in.

Bramble said the state will have a voucher program no matter what voters decide, unless lawmakers take action to do away with the other bill. "The fact is, two bills passed. The referendum is repealing one," he said.

Voters may believe they are repealing the entire voucher program, Bramble said, but would only be taking away the so-called mitigation funds for public schools set aside in HB148 to help ease the financial impact of students shifting to private education.

Bramble said he'd received an e-mail suggesting voucher supporters were signing the petitions because they don't want to pay what they believe is "ransom money" to public schools.

A press conference has been set for April 30 to announce whether the petitions will be certified as sufficient.

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