Pro-marijuana group turns in 95K new signatures to make Ohio ballot

Husted spokesman Joshua Eck said office staff members were ready to receive the signatures up until 11:59 p.m. and the chief of staff informed ResponsibleOhio’s legal counsel of the late hours.

As stated by Husted’s office, there were significant differences between the number of petition signatures ResponsibleOhio claimed to have collected and the number actually submitted to the Secretary of State’s office.

An organization attempting to place a controversial constitutional amendment to legalize marijuana in Ohio is being investigated by Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted for possible election fraud.

That won’t be official, however, for another week or so until boards of election verify that ResponsibleOhio has at least 29,509 valid signatures of registered Ohio voters. He also subpoenaed the campaign’s executive director, Ian James, and his consulting firm, The Strategy Network, for records to aid in the investigation. “If it’s going to be going before the voters, they need to know it got there with integrity”.

ResponsibleOhio has said that, as of Wednesday afternoon, they are still working on a response to Secretary Husted’s announcement.

ResponsibleOhio said it had initially submitted more than 695,000 petition signatures, though thousands were ruled invalid.

James said in a statement Wednesday that ResponsibleOhio followed the law and brought the discrepancies cited by Husted to his offices attention. “In doing so, we were merely exercising our first amendment right to raise legitimate challenges and concerns”. The group had an additional ten days and a midnight deadline to come up with an extra 30,000 valid signatures after falling short of the number needed last month.

If enough of the latest signatures survive, voters will be asked on November. 3 to legalize marijuana for recreational, medical, and commercial purposes and to fashion a new wholesale and retail merchandising system around it that would be regulated and taxed. Its amendment outlines 10 sites where marijuana could be grown, including locations in Hudson in Summit County and Alliance in Stark County, and five testing facilities to check drug supplies for potency and safety, including a site in Mahoning County.