Nebraska’s Secretary of State announced in a press release Friday that Nebraskans will be able to vote on legalizing medical marijuana, despite an ongoing investigation into falsifying signatures by the Nebraska Attorney General and Hall County Attorney.
Both the medical cannabis regulation and patient protection campaigns turned in nearly 90,000 valid signatures, according to the Nebraska Secretary of State’s office — a few thousand more than needed to be considered for the ballot.
However, both of the signature-gathering campaigns are under scrutiny by state and local law enforcement agencies after Hall County Attorney Martin Klein announced Friday his office found several thousand signatures belonged to people ineligible to sign the petition, including misspelled names, incorrect dates of birth and people are deceased.
In a Friday press release, Nebraska Secretary of State Bob Evnen said signatures that county election workers could not verify were not included in the count.
“An investigation conducted by the Attorney General’s office has uncovered serious question about the signature gathering process for these petitions, and we have been advised that a signature collector is being charged with felony fraud,” Evnen said in Friday’s press release. “I am certifying the petitions because, at this point, they appear to have met the threshold signature requirements. That could change in light of the Attorney General’s investigation. Both cannabis petitions will appear on the ballot, but a court could order later that the initiatives be thrown out.”
Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers said even if voters pass the measures, they could be blocked if a court finds there were not enough valid signatures.