The Supreme Court of Arkansas ruled on Monday that ballots for a measure that would have expanded medical marijuana wo n’t be counted because it failed to accurately describe the requirements of the constitutional amendment.
The Arkansas Supreme Court ruled 4-3 on Monday against the” Arkansas Medical Marijuana Amendment of 2024,” according to The Associated Press. The state supreme court ordered election authorities to refrain from counting any seats cast for the program even though the ballot measure may be removed as early as Monday.
The Associated Press reported that the state’s law would have expanded the scope of skilled professionals who could officially review people for the use of cannabis, increased the terms for medical pot cards to three years, and added requirements for patients who could use medical pot.
The Supreme Court of Arkansas, in accordance with The Associated Press, found that the state government could not amend the 2016 constitutional amendment that made medical marijuana legal in Arkansas because it did not fully describe to voters that the act would have prevented the state legislature from amending it. Additionally, the state supreme court pointed out that the ballot measure action did not inform citizens that the constitutional amendment, if the drug had been legalized nationwide, would have allowed up to one gram of marijuana hands for any purpose.
READ MORE: In swing states, hundreds of record ballots are distributed.
In the judge’s lot mind, Arkansas Supreme Court Justice Shawn Womack wrote,” This judgement doomed the proposed ballot headline, and it is plainly misleading”.
According to The Associated Press, court filings revealed the organizers of the health marijuana ballot initiative argued that the estimate listed the number of procedures that would be repealed if the article were to be approved. Additionally, the organizers claimed that prior court decisions made it clear that a summary of the current legislation that needed to be changed should be included in vote measures.
Justice Cody Hiland of the Arkansas Supreme Court dissented from the decision made on Monday, saying that the judge was disregarding law by rejecting the initiative’s participation on the government’s ballot. Hiland remarked,” This court established clear standards for evaluating the validity of common names and ballot titles. ” This prosecutor has never deviated from those standards up until today.”