Marijuana campaign fights aggressive disqualifying of signatures as it races clock for 2026 ballot

As a deadline nears for a marijuana amendment to make the 2026 ballot, Florida has not updated information on verified petitions since last week. That’s despite a Leon County Judge’s order and a Sunday deadline for all petitions to be verified.

On top of that, the numbers reported by the state have consistently lagged behind numbers reported by counties by tens of thousands of signatures.

As of close of business Jan. 23, counties had accepted 779,293 petitions from Smart & Safe Florida, according to the campaign. But the state website only showed 760,0002, a number that has remained online for a week. The state has routinely run far behind in publishing totals accepted.

The campaign must reach 880,062 valid petitions by 5 p.m. on Sunday to qualify for the ballot. Officials at three different Elections Supervisors Offices confirmed they will have staff working through the weekend to process whatever comes in.

“I’m sure counties will be working to get that done, but eventually the clock strikes midnight and you are done,” said Mark Earley, Leon County Supervisor of Elections.

He noted that the deadline is for ballots to be verified, not simply submitted.

Smart & Safe is the only campaign gathering petitions with any reasonable chance to make the 2026 ballot, based on a database of active initiatives.

Of note, Smart & Safe would have already exceeded the required threshold if the state hadn’t tossed 200,000 petitions that did not include the full text of the amendment, a decision Smart & Safe decided not to appeal out of time concerns. But that’s just one of the novel criteria being used to disqualify signatures.

In addition to the 200,000 booted petitions, another 43,000 were tossed because they were signed by voters classified as “inactive,” meaning they are still registered to vote but have not done so recently.

Another 34,000 were also tossed because the state said they were collected by out-of-state gatherers, though campaign organizers said they were collected and submitted during a time when a law forbidding the practice had been stayed by courts.

The campaign said it has submitted some 1.4 million petitions but has seen some 600,000 tossed.

Beyond meeting the threshold of valid signatures, there are also geographic requirements on petition collecting. The campaign must have valid petitions signed by at least 8% of voters in half of Florida’s congressional districts. State totals show the campaign has reached that threshold in 10 of Florida’s 28 congressional districts.

Earley said Offices have had to deal with new legislative guardrails on what petitions can be verified, but said that is nothing new.

“The Legislature enacted some fairly large-scale statutory changes around the petition process,” he said. “Since then, those statutory changes had tight deadlines and had to be put in effect very rapidly. The counties and state are doing our best to make that statutory framework in the day to day and with the deadlines we are facing. We are all doing our best, it has certainly been a challenge.”

But he declined to discuss matters at length due to pending litigation around the rules.

Secretary of State Cord Byrd did not reply to a request for comment, but he has amplified allegations of fraud on social media that have come from the Florida Attorney General’s Office.

Attorney General James Uthmeier, meanwhile, this month announced the arrest of a Titusville petition gatherer for Smart & Safe. Teagen Marie Targhuhanuchi was booked on charges she gathered signatures on Smart & Safe petitions, then using information to fill out voter registration applications. She faces 12 charges of identity theft and of submitting fraudulent voter information.

This has all created a chilling effect for the petition campaign during the home stretch to qualify for the 2026 ballot, those close to the campaign suggest. That also could lead to further litigation, and the campaign appears poised to fight the verification process in court if the state won’t accept hundreds of thousands of petitions submitted on time.

This all follows an election cycle when Gov. Ron DeSantis aggressively, and controversially, fought a similar measure that appeared on the 2024 statewide ballot. Almost 56% of voters in the state voted in favor of that measure, but that was short of a 60% threshold needed to pass a constitutional amendment.

Uthmeier, DeSantis’ Chief of Staff at the time, served as Chair of the campaign opposing passage of the amendment.

Records show the DeSantis administration also spent some $35 million to $45 million fighting the weed measure and another failed amendment on restoring abortion rights in the state, according to records obtained by Seeking Rents. That has prompted action by the Legislature this year to curtail the administration’s ability to spend public dollars fighting political campaigns.