Judge rules Nebraska’s medical marijuana petitions have enough legal signatures

LINCOLN, Neb. (KLKN) — A Lancaster County judge on Tuesday dismissed a challenge against two medical marijuana ballot initiatives.

Judge Susan Strong ruled that there was some fraud and improper conduct during the petition process — but not nearly enough to invalidate the initiatives.

“This case was about numbers,” she wrote, and the numbers did not add up for those challenging the signatures.

SEE ALSO: Judge dismisses charges against notary over Nebraska medical marijuana petitions

In a roughly two-month frenzy of legal filings and hearings, Nebraska Secretary of State Bob Evnen argued that fraud and malfeasance were widespread in the campaign to legalize medical marijuana.

But Strong said there was no evidence of “pervasive” illegal actions, finding that the documented examples were an exception, not the rule.

Evnen and the plaintiff who originally brought the lawsuit, a former state senator, accused five petition circulators of committing fraud.

One of those circulators, Michael Egbert, used a phone book to add names to the petitions.

He has already been convicted in a criminal case, and Strong ruled that every signature he collected should be invalidated “because his testimony has been impeached.”

That amounts to 487 signatures on the petition to legalize medical marijuana and 541 signatures on the petition to regulate it.

SEE ALSO: Nebraska medical marijuana trial ends

But Strong said Evnen did not prove that the other four circulators committed fraud.

A forensic document examiner testified that there were discrepancies in the signatures on their circulator’s affidavits.

But he acknowledged that someone’s signature can look different than usual for a variety of reasons, including signing many documents in a row.

SEE ALSO: Judge won’t block counting of votes on Nebraska medical marijuana initiatives

The judge agreed that there was evidence of malfeasance by some notary publics.

Several petition pages were notarized outside of the presence of the circulators who collected them, a violation of state law.

Evnen argued that if a notary improperly notarized one petition page, every page they notarized could be thrown out.

SEE ALSO: Fraud trial begins for Nebraska medical marijuana petitions

That’s the rule for signatures collected by circulators who commit fraud, but Strong said notary malfeasance does not rise to the same level.

She said circulators sign an affidavit, so if they forge signatures, they are lying under oath. But notaries are not placed under oath.

“It follows that notarizing an affidavit outside of the circulator’s presence is not false testimony,” Strong wrote.

So she ruled that only the pages that were improperly notarized could be tossed.

SEE ALSO: Thousands more signatures on Nebraska medical marijuana petitions under scrutiny

In total, Strong found that 221 signatures on the legalization petition and 285 signatures on the regulation petition “lost their presumption of validity” because of improper notarization.

Counting Egbert’s signatures and three other improperly collected signatures, the judge found that 711 signatures on the legalization petition and 826 on the regulation petition could be invalidated.

To get the initiatives disqualified, Evnen would have needed to prove that more than 3,000 signatures on each petition were invalid.

Voters overwhelmingly approved the initiatives. They will go into effect next month.

SEE ALSO: Nebraska judge dismisses 2 challenges to medical marijuana petitions, lets 2 others stand