Arkansas Supreme Court orders secretary of state not to count medical marijuana amendment votes

The Arkansas Supreme Court ruled Monday that votes cast in the November election for a proposed medical marijuana amendment will not be counted because the popular name and ballot title are misleading.

The Arkansas Medical Marijuana Amendment of 2024 will still appear on the ballot as Issue 3 because the signature verification process was still ongoing on Aug. 22, the deadline for when all candidates and sufficient ballot issues had to be certified to the counties for the ballot. However, the Arkansas Supreme Court’s ruling means any votes cast for the measure will not be counted.

Arkansans for Patient Access (APA), backers of the proposed amendment, filed an original action with the state Supreme Court this month against Secretary of State John Thurston after he deemed the group’s petition insufficient. Jim Bell and Protect Arkansas Kids, a ballot question committee that formed in July in opposition to the proposal, joined the case as intervenors siding with Thurston.

Writing for the majority, Associate Justice Shawn Womack said the state’s high court agreed with the intervenors in the case that the measure’s popular name, the Arkansas Medical Marijuana Amendment of 2024, is misleading because it does not inform voters that the amendment, if passed, would affect more than medical marijuana.




https://arkansasadvocate.com/2024/10/21/arkansas-supreme-court-orders-secretary-of-state-not-to-count-medical-marijuana-amendment-votes/