Nebraska could be one of the next states to launch a legal medical marijuana market after Secretary of State Bob Evnen and the state’s Elections Division certified that signature requirements have been met for two initiatives to appear on the Nov. 5 general election ballot.
But the approval of the Nebraska Medical Cannabis Patient Protection Initiative petition and the Nebraska Medical Cannabis Regulation Initiative petition is not without its challenges. Evnen said he is moving forward despite an investigation into fraudulent signature gathering and a lawsuit filed last week to halt the efforts.
Green Market Report wrote in August that Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana easily cleared the 86,000-signature threshold it needed to submit to the state in support of its two proposed amendments – one to legalize the medical use of cannabis and another to regulate the marijuana industry. The campaign last month submitted more than 114,000 signatures to the secretary of state, of which more than 89,000 had been verified for each of the two measures.
However, Evnen noted that “an investigation conducted by the Attorney General’s office has uncovered serious questions about the signature gathering process for these petitions, and we have been advised that a signature collector is being charged with felony fraud.”
He added that any signatures that could not be verified were not included in the final tally.
“I am certifying the petitions because, at this point, they appear to have met the threshold signature requirements. That could change in light of the Attorney General’s investigation. Both cannabis petitions will appear on the ballot, but a court could order later that the initiatives be thrown out,” he said.
Hall County Attorney Martin Klein and Attorney General Mike Hilgers hosted a joint press conference last week announcing a Class IV felony charge related to fraudulent signatures found on the petitions.
“Signature irregularities were found by the Hall County Election Office, and an investigation ensued,” Klein said.
The investigation began after Hall County Election Commissioner Tracy Overstreet flagged 17 of the regulation petitions as having potentially fraudulent signatures. Overstreet also identified 21 pages of the patient protection petition as having potentially fraudulent signatures. All of the suspect pages traced back to one petition circulator, Michael Egbert of Grand Island.
Egbert was charged with false swearing to a circulator’s affidavit on a petition under Neb. Rev. Stat. 32-1546(2). The penalty for a Class IV felony ranges from probation to a maximum of two years in prison and up to a $10,000 fine. Klein said he felt it was important to file the charges to maintain the integrity of the election process.
“Petition circulators and voters alike should know and understand that this office – and all election offices across Nebraska – take elections and signature verification very seriously,” Overstreet said. “We go through each petition line by line by line, signature by signature – just like we do for signatures on early voting ballot envelopes.”
This is the campaign’s third attempt to get medical cannabis legalized in the state, with the first in 2020 losing to a legal challenge and a second in 2022 falling short of the necessary number of signatures. The campaign will still face political opposition, including Lancaster County Sheriff Terry Wagner, who spearheaded the lawsuit four years ago that defeated the measure, according to the AP.
The state said a court order could throw out the initiatives. Read More