The Maine Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol has announced today that a lawsuit has been filed urging the state to recognize the intent of voters who want an opportunity to have their say on ending cannabis prohibition this November. As we previously noted, the Maine Secretary of State decided to trample the will and intent of thousands of voters by unnecessarily disqualifying thousands of signatures, without doing any due diligence to ascertain that signatures were filed directly.

It certainly seems that the Maine Secretary of State may have acted with prejudice either against the CRMLA campaign or against the individual notary that had thousands of signatures disqualified. It has been reported that Secretary Matt Dunlap’s office contacted notaries and followed up on perceived irregularities to ensure that voter intent was acknowledged.

Secretary Dunlap had admitted that more than 17,000 signatures were disqualified without his office doing anything to follow-up on the issue, after first erroneously stating that his office did attempt to contact the notary. While it is commendable that Secretary Dunlap has acknowledged that he is at fault for creating confusion and that he is mad at himself, it is more important that the will and intent of voters be recognized.

The lawsuit argues that the the Secretary of State’s decision to invalidate signatures was flawed because the disputed signatures match those on file with the state and that the Secretary of State acted outside of his authority in invalidating the petitions. Attorney Scott Anderson, of the Portland law firm Verrill Dana, is representing a group of Maine voters who signed the petition in support of the initiative, including CRMLA director David Boyer, Maine State Senator Eric Brakey, and Maine State Representative Diane Russell.

“We are confident that this appeal will result in the initiative appearing on the November ballot,” Boyer stated in a press release announcing the lawsuit. “Each of the petitions in question was properly signed by both the circulators and the notaries. There is simply no reason for the Secretary of State to reject more than 17,000 signatures from registered voters in the state.

“The Secretary of State’s Office did not follow procedures commonly used to ensure, in their words, the ‘integrity’ of the process,” Boyer added. “The law dictates that these 17,000-plus signatures be counted.”

A strong majority of Maine citizens support putting an end to the failed and harmful policy of cannabis prohibition. Hopefully, Maine courts will correct this temporary injustice and voters can have their say at the ballot box this November.