The Oklahoma Supreme Court shot down two out of four legal challenges against a marijuana legalization initiative on Friday, giving activists a couple of wins as the justices consider the remaining complaints as well as a broader decision on whether the measure will be officially placed on the November ballot.
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The Court gave both petitioners a shortened window to request a rehearing because of the timeliness of the ballot issue, seemingly setting the court up to make a final ruling next week on whether the initiative can go before voters this year.
The deadline to submit a challenge against the proposed constitutional amendment closed on Thursday. A total of four complaints were filed, including two that concerned the signature certification that the court rejected on Friday and two more recent challenges that deal with the ballot title language.
One of the dismissed complaints came from a former Oklahoma lawmaker, Mike Reynolds, who alleged that a recently enacted state law on election integrity made it a “practical impossibility” to review signatures because, he said, they’ve been made inaccessible without taking legal action to review.
The court pointed out that, by Reynolds’s own admission, he was able to get a digitized version of petition “hours after” filing out the application according to statute. And his request for an additional 10 days to challenge the measure after reviewing the signatures would “violate both legislative…
