LINCOLN, Neb. (WOWT) – Lancaster County District Court Judge Susan Strong dismissed the challenge to throw out the Nebraska Medical Cannabis initiative.
“The petitions fulfill all constitutional and statutory requirements and are thus, legally sufficient under Nebraska law,” the judge said.
This will likely be appealed to the Nebraska Supreme Court.
Remember, earlier this month Nebraskans overwhelming voted in support of legalizing medical marijuana and regulating. Seven of every 10 voters said “yes.”
The results will be certified next week.
“This case was about numbers,” the judge said.
The plaintiff and Secretary of State needed to show that 3,463 signatures on the Legalization Petition and 3,357 signatures on the Regulatory Petition are invalid.
They “are well short,” wrote the judge.
By her math, she could only invalidate 711 signatures on the first petition and 826 on the second one.
The judge also wrote about the state’s claim that it was a “pervasive practice of notarizing petitions outside the circulators’ presence.” But she said that needs to be put into context. “For example, Crista Eggers and Garrett Connely — the campaign’s number one and number two — exchanged thousands and thousands of text messages.”
She pointed out that their messages over three months filled more than 800 pages.
“Yet out of these thousands of messages, only one refers to notarizing petitions outside of the circulator’s presence,” the judge said. ”If there was a pervasive practice of notarizing petitions outside of the circulators’ presence, then the court would expect the evidence to be more pervasive.”
MEDICAL MARIJUANA TRIAL
Day 4: Closing arguments
The trial over Nebraska’s medical marijuana ballot initiatives hit an end point even as voters were casting ballots on the issue.
Read the judge’s order
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