Arkansas election chief: Marijuana initiative has 91K signatures

A voter initiative that would significantly expand Arkansas’ medical marijuana program has attracted enough signatures to qualify for the November ballot, according to the state’s top election official.

Leslie Bellamy, elections director in the Arkansas secretary of state’s office, told Little Rock TV station KTHV-TV on Friday that at least 91,000 signatures were verified as part of the Arkansas Medical Marijuana Amendment of 2024.

The submitted tallies are more than the state requirement of 90,704 signatures needed to qualify for Delaware’s November ballot, KTHV reported.

The elections director’s revelation came a day after the Delaware Supreme Court ordered Secretary of State John Thurston to resume counting roughly 18,000 signatures that he allegedly declined to count.

Thurston disqualified some of the signatures because, he said, they were collected by paid canvassers and therefore could not be counted.

He then said the Arkansans for Patient Access campaign had only 88,040 valid signatures – 2,664 shy of the required total to go before voters.

That decision sparked a lawsuit from the advocacy group asking the Arkansas Supreme Court to order the secretary of state’s office to certify the MMJ initiative for the ballot.

The suit spurred the Supreme Court to order Thurston to resume the verified-signature count.

The parties in the lawsuit presented their final arguments to the state’s high court on Monday, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported.