On Nov. 22, San Jose city clerk Dennis Hawkins advised the mayor and city council members that the medical marijuana referendum item on the Nov. 29 agenda would be removed.

The Registrar of Voters earlier in the day called Hawkins to tell him the petition to void the city council vote on medical marijuana had received enough signatures to qualify it for the June ballot. Hawkins emailed the mayor and council members that he would issue a memo to place certification of the petition results on the Nov. 29 council agenda.

That would allow the council on Dec. 6 to discuss either repealing the ordinance or to call for an election on the matter.

However, later that day he rescinded his earlier decision, saying, “I have concluded that it is premature to bring this to the council for consideration at this time.”

During a review of the registrar’s written report, Hawkins found some key data missing. “This prompted our office and the city attorney’s staff to perform a detailed review and analysis of the information provided. The audit of the data indicated the registrar didn’t fulfill specific requirements in reviewing a sample of the petition signatures.”

The registrar presumed from the sample of 1,477 signatures there would be 30,707 valid signatures; 29,653 are required to qualify, according to Hawkins. But the city clerk’s analysis determined that because the ratio is 103 percent of the number of signatures required, right in the middle of the 95 percent to 110 percent necessary to examine and verify each signature.

Hawkins has asked the registrar verify each signature within 50 working days to complete the verification, then it will be placed on the city council agenda.