One of Arkansas’ competing measures to legalize medical cannabis — the Arkansas Medical Cannabis Act — has been disqualified from the ballot by the Arkansas Supreme Court, according to a 40/29 News report. The other legalization measure, the Arkansas Medical Marijuana Amendment, remains on the ballot and will be appearing before voters in the November 8 general election.
According to the court, the AMCA — which was set to appear as Issue 7 on the ballot — was disqualified due to a number of mistakes made in the petitioning process. In the court’s written opinion, five reasons were given for dismissing some of the signatures:
- Some petition gatherers did not comply with state requirements laid out for political canvassers.
- Some signatures listed only a P.O. box number and not a home address.
- Some canvassers had verified their petitions before they were signed by a voter.
- Some canvassers made errors filling out the form.
- Canvassers did not always explicitly witness the signing of the petition.
In total, the Arkansas Supreme Court threw out just over 12,000 signatures, lowering the total number of valid signatures to 65,412 — insufficient for making the ballot.
The AMCA, which enjoyed a NORML endorsement, was considered by many marijuana advocates to be superior to the AMMA, for it allowed cannabis treatment for a wider variety of ailments and included home grow provisions for patients.
On the bright side, however, narrowing things down to only one MMJ option on the ballot means that Arkansas is less likely to split the pro-cannabis vote between two measures, which means that legal cannabis may now be a more likely outcome.
Three other states will be voting on medical marijuana measures this November.