In a span of a little over two weeks, an initiative petition to legalize recreational marijuana in Missouri made an unexpected comeback.
In late July, unofficial tallies showed the Legal Missouri campaign 2,275 signatures short of the threshold for getting on the ballot, leading many to believe its hopes were dashed.
By Aug. 9, the deficit was gone, and Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft announced he had certified the marijuana petition to appear on the November ballot.
During that window, the campaign behind the initiative petition deployed a novel strategy.
Instead of waiting for certification and turning to the courts, as outlined in state law, it asked the Secretary of State’s Office to do its own review of signatures. The campaign even provided a list of signatures it felt were incorrectly disqualified.
And the maneuver, which surprised veterans of the initiative petition process, worked.
“I don’t recall a time when there were corrections like this that were done outside of the court process,” said Chuck Hatfield, an attorney who has represented numerous initiative petition campaigns over the years.
Hatfield later added: “Procedurally, I think they did something here that is not really contemplated by the statute.”
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