COLUMBUS – A campaign to legalize marijuana for medicinal and recreational use in Ohio faces a Thursday deadline to submit additional signatures as it seeks to get the issue before fall voters but has run into a legal buzzkill over signatures it has already submitted.
Secretary of State Jon Husted on Wednesday named a special investigator to look into the signature discrepancies and is subpoenaing the campaign’s director.
ResponsibleOhio had initially turned in more than 695,000 petition signatures, though thousands were ruled invalid. Husted issued a warning to the group last month when county boards of elections found that the Strategy Network, the organization managing ResponsibleOhio’s petition drive, was submitting an alarming number of fraudulent voter registration forms, according to a release from Husted’s office.
“As with every possible case of election fraud, it is my responsibility to investigate and hold accountable anyone who may have cheapened the voice of all Ohioans by cheating the system,” said Husted, the state’s top elections official.
Former Allen County Prosecutor David Bowers has been named to investigate the Strategy Network’s signature-gathering activities.
“No good deed goes unpunished,” says ResponsibleOhio legal counsel Larry James. “We brought these very discrepancies to Secretary Husted, and now he’s trying to punish us for pointing them out publicly.”
ResponsibleOhio had to gather more signatures after Husted said they fell short by roughly 30,000 in meeting the state’s requirement of about 306,000 signatures.
Husted’s office must review any new signatures submitted.
ResponsibleOhio’s proposed amendment would allow adults 21 and over to buy marijuana and establish a network of 10 authorized growing locations around the state.
That was not the only setback dealt Wednesday to efforts to legalize marijuana in the state. Attorney General Mike DeWine rejected the petition for a proposed constitutional amendment which would allow the use of medicinal marijuana.