Nebraska activists have turned in what they hope to be enough signatures to qualify a pair of medical cannabis legalization initiatives for the November ballot. But with an already slim margin of error stemming from a volunteer-focused petitioning effort, the campaign faced a legal setback on Wednesday when a federal court overruled a lower judge’s ruling that had temporarily eased ballot requirements.
While the Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana (NMM) campaign said earlier this week that it had collected enough “raw” signatures to qualify, they set out to gather several thousand more ahead of Thursday’s turn-in deadline to ensure that they ended up with enough valid petitions.
The advocates said they ultimately turned in more than 90,000 signatures to the state for each measure. Now the verification process will start to determine if voters will have a say on the reform issue this year. Each proposal needs roughly 87,000 valid signatures from registered voters in order to qualify.
“Two months ago, we were at 20,000 signatures on each petition. And now we’re well over 90,000 on each,” NMM co-chair and state Sen. Anna Wishart (D) said tearfully just before turning in the submissions at the secretary of state’s office, thanking the volunteers and activists who pushed through despite the difficult circumstances.
To read the complete article, go to www.marijuanamoment.net