LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — The Arkansas Supreme Court has ordered Secretary of State John Thurston to verify roughly 18,000 remaining signatures submitted during the cure period for the Arkansas Medical Marijuana Amendment of 2024.
The order states Thurston has to file a report and notice of compliance by Friday, Oct. 4 at 12:00 p.m.
This comes after Thurston shared on Monday that the proposal would still appear on the 2024 ballot, but that votes wouldn't be counted towards the effort after the Secretary of State's Office said the proposal fell short of the signature requirement.
The effort, the Arkansas Medical Marijuana Amendment of 2024, aims to expand access to medical marijuana by qualified patients.
This would allow certain medical professionals to certify patients, expand the list of qualifying medical conditions, and more.
A day after Thurston's initial denial of the proposal, the sponsor of the measure announced a lawsuit against Thurston for how he handled the signatures of the medical marijuana amendment.
Arkansans for Patient Access (APA), the ballot committee sponsoring the proposed medical marijuana amendment, filed the lawsuit which challenged Thurston's decision not to count about 28,413 signatures and asking the Arkansas Supreme Court to certify their measure for the ballot ahead of the start of early voting on Oct. 21.
According to documents, APA submitted over 150,000 voter signatures supporting the proposed amendment, surpassing the required 90,704.
However, Thurston sent a letter to the group stating that 10,521 of the signatures submitted during the cure period were valid, bringing the total to 88,040.
In the lawsuit, APA argued that Thurston wrongfully refused to validate and count signatures because some of the group's paid canvassers were not registered before collecting signatures.