Ark. marijuana proposal needs more signatures

Supporters of a measure to legalize medical marijuana in Arkansas will be given 30 additional days to circulate petitions after clearing an initial count but falling short of the required number of signatures to qualify for the November ballot, election officials said Friday.

Meanwhile, a proposal to give a professional poker player exclusive rights to operate casinos in four counties met an initial rough count of signatures and officials are now verifying whether they came from registered voters.

The secretary of state's office said that only 36,495 of the 65,413 signatures submitted by Arkansans for Compassionate Care, the group formed to campaign for the medical marijuana proposal, were valid. The proposed initiated act needed at least 62,507 signatures from registered voters to qualify for the ballot.

Elections Director Martha Adcock told the group in a letter that it had until Aug. 13 to submit additional signatures. Campaign Director Ryan Denham said the group hoped to turn in 55,000 additional signatures by the deadline. He said the group planned to gather signatures at dozens of locations around the state on July 28.

"We are gearing up to collect larger numbers of signatures," Denham said. "That was the plan all along."

The casino proposal by Nancy Todd cleared the first hurdle that had tripped up a competing measure by a Texas businessman. Election officials on Wednesday invalidated Michael Wasserman's proposal after he fell short of the minimum signatures during the initial count. Wasserman didn't meet a requirement that signatures from at least 15 counties equal at least 5 percent of the votes cast in the last governor's election.

The casino proposal needs at least 78,133 signatures from registered voters to qualify since it's a constitutional amendment.

Wasserman's proposal would have given him exclusive rights to operate casinos in seven Arkansas counties. He wasn't given additional time since he didn't make it past the initial count.

Alex Reed, a spokesman for the secretary of state's office, said election officials have not completed their initial count of a remaining ballot proposal to raise the severance tax on natural gas. Former natural gas executive Sheffield Nelson filed the proposed initiated act, which proposes raising the tax to pay for highway improvements.

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Andrew DeMillo can be reached at www.twitter.com/ademillo

The Associated Press