Oklahoma medical marijuana petition gets enough signatures to be examined for ballot

An initiative petition to let Oklahomans vote on whether to legalize marijuana for medicinal purposes has enough signatures to potentially get on the ballot, Oklahoma Secretary of State Chris Benge announced Tuesday.

Backers of the petition say they hope to get the issue on the November ballot, but state officials say time constraints may make that impossible. If the issue fails to make the November ballot, voters still might get a chance to vote on it later during a special election or the 2018 primary or general election, officials said.

The secretary of state's office counted 67,761 signatures for the proposed state question, which is 1,774 more than the 65,987 signatures needed to get the issue on the ballot.

The latter number represents 8 percent of the 824,831 ballots cast in the 2014 gubernatorial election.