Florida Officials Say Cannabis Legalization Campaign Failed to Qualify for Ballot
- Florida's cannabis legalization campaign, Smart & Safe Florida, failed to submit the required 880,062 valid voter signatures by the deadline, reportedly falling about 100,000 signatures short.
- The campaign disputes the announcement, claiming over 1.4 million signatures were submitted and that final counts will show they qualify for the ballot.
- Governor Ron DeSantis opposes the legalization effort, and several of his appointees have been accused of interfering with the ballot initiative process, including invalidating signatures and complicating verification procedures.
- In 2024, a similar Florida cannabis amendment failed to pass, receiving 56% voter support, short of the 60% needed for approval.
Florida officials said that the cannabis legalization campaign seeking to put an adult-use constitutional amendment before voters this year has failed to collect enough signatures to qualify for the ballot, the Associated Press reports.
Sunday was the deadline for submitting 880,062 valid voter signatures. According to an announcement by the Florida Department of State, the Smart & Safe Florida campaign was about 100,000 signatures short of its goal. In fact, none of the 22 proposed citizen initiatives this year were able to qualify for the November ballot.
Campaign representatives said in a statement that they believe the announcement was premature:
“We believe the declaration by the Secretary of State is premature, as the final and complete county-by-county totals for validated petitions are not yet reported. We submitted over 1.4 million signatures and believe when they are all counted, we will have more than enough to make the ballot.” — Smart & Safe Florida campaign statement, via the AP
The legalization proposal is opposed by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), who also fought the state’s 2024 legalization bid. Several governor appointees have been accused of disrupting the ballot initiative process.
Last October, the campaign sued state officials for allegedly dragging their feet to delay the campaign’s signature-gathering efforts.
In November, a Florida circuit court judge tossed over 200,000 signatures in support of the cannabis legalization amendment after Florida Division of Elections Director Maria Matthews — a gubernatorial appointee — claimed some of the petitions were invalid because signing voters were not provided the proposed amendment’s full text.
And in January, last-minute directives to Florida election supervisors further complicated the state’s voter verification process, requiring thousands of petition signatories to verify their signatures in order to be counted.
In 2024, a Florida cannabis legalization constitutional amendment failed to reach the 60% voter support threshold required to pass, garnering just 56% of the vote.