Carson City, NV: Campaigners for a proposed ballot initiative to remove all penalties for the use or possession of one ounce or less of marijuana by persons at least 21 years of age failed to collect enough valid signatures to place the measure on the November ballot, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled yesterday in a 2-1 decision.
The court found that state election officials were correct in rejecting 2,360 signatures from residents who registered to vote on the same day that they signed the petition. Nevada Secretary of State Dean Heller had previously determined the signatures to be invalid because the voter registrations were not turned in to the registrar on the same day that the petitions were signed.
Petitioners needed 1,925 additional valid signatures to meet the 51,337 total signatures the state requires in order to place an initiative on the Nevada ballot.
State election officials had previously rejected some 20,000 signatures because petitioners had failed to comply with a state law mandating voters to sign both the petition and a document attesting that the names on it were from registered voters. However, a federal judge later ruled that requirement to be unconstitutional, and ordered those signatures to be recounted.
A similar initiative seeking to exempt adults from criminal prosecution for the use or possession of marijuana will appear on the Alaska state ballot this November.
For a complete summary of this fall’s pending state and local initiatives, please visit:
http://www.norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=6172