{"id":56830,"date":"2022-08-25T05:16:43","date_gmt":"2022-08-25T13:16:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/2022\/08\/25\/nebraska-officials-will-take-a-second-look-at-signatures-for-rejected-medical-marijuana-ballot-measures\/"},"modified":"2022-08-25T08:45:53","modified_gmt":"2022-08-25T16:45:53","slug":"nebraska-officials-will-take-a-second-look-at-signatures-for-rejected-medical-marijuana-ballot-measures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/2022\/08\/25\/nebraska-officials-will-take-a-second-look-at-signatures-for-rejected-medical-marijuana-ballot-measures\/","title":{"rendered":"Nebraska Officials Will Take A Second Look At Signatures For Rejected Medical Marijuana Ballot Measures"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

\u201cWe believe that it\u2019s essential that every signature from every Nebraskan be counted.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

By Paul Hammel, Nebraska Examiner<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Nebraska secretary of state\u2019s office has agreed to take another look at signatures submitted by a group seeking legalization of medical marijuana to determine if they should have been counted.<\/p>\n

But the office says that even with a second look, its declaration remains that the initiative petition drive by Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana fell short of the requirements to qualify<\/a> for a spot on the November ballot.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe determination regarding the legal sufficiency of the petitions provided on Monday\u2026still stands,\u201d said Colleen Bydick, an attorney with the secretary of state\u2019s office, in an email Wednesday to Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana.<\/p>\n

Drive already deemed a failure<\/strong><\/p>\n

On Monday, the secretary of state\u2019s office announced that the two petitions submitted by the marijuana group had each fallen about 9,000 signatures short of submitting the required 86,776 signatures of registered voters. They were declared to have failed another requirement\u2014to submit signatures from at least 5 percent of registered voters in 38 of the state\u2019s 93 counties.<\/p>\n

Meetings and discussions over the past two days led to an agreement Wednesday that another look would be given to some signatures that had been disqualified, according to Crista Eggers, the campaign coordinator for Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter analyzing the data from the secretary of state\u2019s office, it came to our attention that not all the signatures have been put through the complete validation process,\u201d Eggers said. \u201cWe believe that it\u2019s essential that every signature from every Nebraskan be counted.\u201d<\/p>\n

She was less sure that the reconsideration would reverse the failure of the petition drive.<\/p>\n

\u2018Outcome\u2026unknown\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat the outcome is, that remains unknown,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Eggers said her group appreciates that the secretary of state\u2019s office is willing to take another look and that \u201cthere\u2019s no pointing fingers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Messages left Wednesday evening with officials in the secretary of state\u2019s office were not immediately returned.<\/p>\n

The email obtained by the Examiner made it clear the office was under no legal obligation to take another look and that even in doing so, the medical marijuana group would likely fall short.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s unclear exactly how many signatures are being reconsidered. But requests by the Examiner to get a detailed explanation of why signatures were disqualified had not produced a result. A spokeswoman from the secretary of state\u2019s office said Tuesday such data would be provided soon.<\/p>\n

Ever since Monday\u2019s announce that the medical marijuana effort had failed, advocates for cannabis have been digging into data as to why about 21,000 of the 98,000 signatures submitted for each of the two petitions had not been counted.<\/p>\n

Not unusual for signatures to be tossed<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s not unusual for a percentage of signatures on such initiative petitions to be thrown out\u2014in fact, petition organizers regularly try to submit thousands more signatures than needed because of that. Signers must be registered voters and must sign petitions intended for the county in which they live. There are also requirements for circulators that must be followed, and each petition must be notarized.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also not unusual to see lawsuits filed after petitions for ballot issues are submitted.<\/p>\n

Two years ago, after the Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana turned in more than enough signatures to qualify a legalization vote for the 2020 ballot, opponents of medical marijuana filed a lawsuit. It resulted in a Nebraska Supreme Court ruling that tossed the measure off the ballot<\/a> because, the court ruled, it violated the state\u2019s \u201csingle subject\u201d rule for such initiatives.<\/p>\n

Just how quickly the secretary of state\u2019s office can complete a second look at the medical marijuana petitions is unclear. The office is also currently validating signatures for two other initiatives: one to raise the state\u2019s minimum wage and another to require identification at a polling place before being allowed to vote.<\/p>\n

This story was first published by Nebraska Examiner.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\n

New York Marijuana Officials Are Now Accepting Applications For The First Recreational Dispensary Licenses<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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The post Nebraska Officials Will Take A Second Look At Signatures For Rejected Medical Marijuana Ballot Measures<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n


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\nRead More: Nebraska Officials Will Take A Second Look At Signatures For Rejected Medical Marijuana Ballot Measures<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cWe believe that it\u2019s essential that every signature from every Nebraskan be counted.\u201d By Paul Hammel, Nebraska Examiner The Nebraska secretary of state\u2019s office has agreed to take another look at signatures submitted by a group seeking legalization of medical marijuana to determine if they should have been counted. ButContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":457,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18,81],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56830"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/457"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56830"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56830\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56831,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56830\/revisions\/56831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}