Backers of a proposed recreational-marijuana constitutional amendment filed a lawsuit Monday challenging directives by state elections officials that invalidated about 71,000 petition signatures.
The lawsuit, filed in Leon County circuit court by the Smart & Safe Florida political committee, came slightly more than a month before a Feb. 1 deadline to submit enough petition signatures to get on the November ballot. It also was the latest twist in legal battles about the pot proposal.
Smart & Safe Florida alleged in the lawsuit that Secretary of State Cord Byrd improperly directed county election supervisors to invalidate about 42,000 petitions signed by what are known as “inactive” voters and nearly 29,000 petitions collected by out-of-state petition gatherers.
The lawsuit said “time is of the essence,” as Smart & Safe Florida must submit at least 880,062 valid signatures to the state by Feb. 1. As of Tuesday morning, the state Division of Elections website showed 675,307 valid signatures for the proposal, which would allow people ages 21 and older to use recreational marijuana.
“The Florida secretary of state has issued two unlawful directives that, unless stopped, will invalidate the citizen initiative petitions signed by more than 70,000 registered voters,” the lawsuit said.
Part of the lawsuit involves a Dec. 23 directive to invalidate petitions signed by inactive voters. Such voters, the lawsuit said, remain registered to vote but are considered inactive because mail sent to them was undeliverable and their addresses weren’t confirmed. Inactive voters can be removed from the voter rolls if they don’t vote in two general elections, update their registrations or request vote-by-mail ballots.
Smart & Safe Florida contends that the inactive voters’ petitions should not be invalidated because they remain registered voters.
“The absurd result of the secretary’s directive is that ‘inactive’ voters can vote for the proposed amendment but cannot have their petitions counted to place the proposed amendment on the ballot to vote for it,” the lawsuit said.
The other part of the lawsuit, involving out-of-state petition gatherers, is tangled in a separate legal fight about a law passed in 2025.
The law prohibited non-Florida residents from collecting signatures for ballot proposals. Groups including Smart & Safe Florida challenged the law in federal court, and U.S. District Judge Mark Walker in July issued a preliminary injunction to block it.
After the injunction was issued, Smart & Safe Florida used out-of-state petition gatherers. But in September, a panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a stay of Walker’s injunction — effectively allowing the law to be enforced while the legal battle continues.
The new lawsuit alleges that Byrd’s office improperly directed invalidating petitions collected by out-of-state petition gatherers during the period when the injunction was in effect. It said the out-of-state workers “were validly registered by the Division (of Elections) and lawfully gathered petitions during a roughly two-month period when a preliminary injunction was in force.”
Smart & Safe Florida also sought to pass a recreational marijuana amendment in 2024 but fell short of receiving the required 60 percent voter approval. Gov. Ron DeSantis spearheaded efforts to defeat the 2024 amendment.
The lawsuit, which names as defendants Byrd and Leon County Supervisor of Elections Mark Earley, is assigned to Circuit Judge Angela Dempsey. Last month, another circuit judge, John Cooper, upheld state elections officials’ invalidation of 200,000 petition signatures for the pot amendment.
Those signatures were invalidated because petitions did not include the full text of the proposed constitutional amendment. Smart & Safe Florida mailed the petitions to voters, and the state alleged signatures were “not obtained legally.”
State elections officials also argued the flagged petitions needed to be invalidated because Smart & Safe Florida made changes to the format of the petition form approved by Byrd’s office.