LANSING, MI -- A petition to legalize recreational marijuana in Michigan is blocked from the ballot under a court ruling issued Wednesday, but the group plans to appeal that ruling.

The MI Legalize group sought to get its petition to legalize the use of recreational marijuana for those over 21 on the November ballot. To get on the ballot MI Legalize needed to turn in 252,523 valid signatures, and it turned in 345,000 signatures.

However, the Board of State Canvassers determined that not enough of those signatures were valid. That's because some were collected more than 180 days before the signatures were turned in, and state law at the time presumed those older signatures to be invalid.

There was a way to prove that the signatures were still valid, but it was an onerous process involving affidavits from local clerks. MI Legalize organizers tried and failed to get the Board of State Canvassers to establish an easier method of validating old signatures. In the meantime, the legislature changed the law to limit signature collection to a strict 180 days.

But MI Legalize sued, claiming their signatures were vaild.

In an opinion authored by Judge Stephen Borrello, the Court of Appeals disagreed, saying that the Secretary of State, Bureau of Elections and Board of State Canvassers "have no clear legal duty to count the presumptively stale and void petition signatures that plaintiff submitted."

Jeffrey Hank of MI Legalize said the group planned to file an emergency appeal with Michigan Supreme Court.

"The most frustrating thing to us is there really is no basis for these valid signatures not being counted," Hank said.

He plans to file an appeal as soon as Wednesday afternoon.