Secretary of State certifies signatures for ResponsibleOhio Marijuana Constitutional Amendment

COLUMBUS – Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted today certified that petitioners seeking to place a constitutional amendment on the November 2015 ballot have collected 44,185 additional, supplemental signatures.

This number joins the 276,082 valid signatures the group submitted on June 30, 2015 for a total of 320,267 valid signatures. The petitioners, known as ResponsibleOhio, needed to gather 305,591 signatures in order to secure a place on the ballot, a number equal to 10 percent of the total votes cast for governor in the most recent gubernatorial election, 2014.

As part of the total number of signatures needed to place the measure on the ballot, petitioners are also required to have submitted signatures from at least 44 of Ohio’s 88 counties, and within each of those counties, collected enough signatures equal to five percent of the total vote cast for governor in the most recent gubernatorial election, 2014. The petitioners met this requirement in their first signature submission, having collected enough signatures to meet the five percent threshold in 73 counties.

Having met the constitutional and legal requirements to place the matter before Ohio voters, the issue will appear on the ballot during the General Election held on November 3, 2015. The next step in the process is for the Ballot Board to convene to approve the ballot language that voters will consider this fall.

It is the constitutional and statutory duty of the Secretary of State to verify and certify signatures submitted for citizen-initiated constitutional amendments, initiated statutes and legislative referenda.