LINCOLN — People with ties to payday lenders have brought three lawsuits against a ballot measure seeking to cap loan rates for the quick-cash businesses.Brian Chaney of Omaha, who has worked in the payday loan industry, filed the latest legal challenge Monday in Lancaster County District Court. His lawsuit seeks to have the measure taken off the Nov. 3 ballot.

The suit is accompanied by affidavits from 188 people who say they want to withdraw their signatures from the petition to put the measure on the ballot. They claim that petition circulators did not read them the object of the petition, as required by law, and that they do not support the object of the petition.

The 188 live in 10 smaller-population counties. If their signatures were removed, the petition no longer would meet the requirement to have signatures from 5% of registered voters in each of 38 counties. As a result, Chaney’s suit argues, the payday lending proposal does not qualify for the ballot.

Secretary of State Bob Evnen announced last month that the proposal had enough signatures to go before voters at the general election. Supporters collected well over the 85,628 valid signatures needed to qualify.

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