Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana submitted more than 114,000 signatures to the Secretary of State's office on Wednesday afternoon for each of its two petitions seeking to legalize medical cannabis in the state.
At the end of its second-straight grassroots campaign, the advocacy group turned in some 27,000 more signatures than the 87,000 needed to qualify for November's general election ballot.
Campaign manager Crista Eggers said circulators continued to gather names until Wednesday afternoon when the petitions were turned in to Secretary of State Bob Evnen.
"In this world, you never have enough," said Eggers, who led the campaign that fell just short of qualifying for the ballot in 2022. "There's never a number that's good enough."
If the petitions meet the two-pronged requirement outlined in state statute, Nebraskans will be asked to approve two separate measures this November.
The first initiative would enact legal protections for doctors who recommend cannabis to their patients as well as patients who use cannabis for medical purposes.
The second would allow the creation of a legal system for the production, supply and distribution of medical cannabis in Nebraska.
Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana will now wait as county election officials verify the name, address and signature of each signer over the next five to six weeks. About 15% to 30% of petition signatures are typically invalidated, often because signees aren't registered to vote or fail to date their signatures.
It's the third time Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana has gone through the process of trying to put the question to voters.
In 2020, against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic, the organization submitted 196,000 signatures for a single petition that sought to legalize marijuana for medical use in Nebraska.
While the measure was initially placed on the ballot, it was met with a legal challenge from Lancaster County Sheriff Terry Wagner, who argued it violated Nebraska's single-subject rule for ballot initiatives.
The Nebraska Supreme Court ultimately sided with Wagner on a 5-2 vote and the initiative was removed from the general election ballot.
Two years later, in 2022, Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana suffered another setback after a key donor to its campaign died, leading the organization to relaunch its petition drive as a grassroots effort.
Organizers then turned their attention to collecting the raw total needed to meet the state's requirement that petitions be signed by 7% of all registered voters.
Earlier this week, Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana announced it needed about 12,000 more signatures to qualify for the ballot in a last-minute push to get signatures.
As many as 2,500 signatures were collected for both petitions on the final day of circulation, Eggers said.
If the medical marijuana petitions meet the signature-gathering requirements, the effort could be the first in recent history to do so on a limited budget.
Most successful petition drives require raising more than $1 million in funding to qualify for the ballot. As of May, Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana had spent a little more than $813,000, according to the Nebraska Accountability and Disclosure Commission.
June's campaign finance reports are due next week.
Eggers said an army of volunteers, including some with family who could benefit from using cannabis for medical conditions, fanned out across the state to make up for a relative lack of funding.
She called the campaign "horrifically beautiful," describing instances where patients with terminal cancer diagnoses, Parkinson's and other debilitating illnesses came out to sign the petitions.
"All of those signatures, all of those pieces of paper represent the stories of Nebraskans who so desperately want access to cannabis for themselves or their loved ones," she said.
Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana, led by Crista Eggers, the statewide campaign coordinator, submitted more than 114,000 signatures to the Secretary of State's office on Wednesday afternoon for each of its two petitions seeking to legalize medical cannabis in the state.