Those who were hoping for a clean vote in Florida this November election may be disenchanted. Florida's Constitutional Amendment 2, which expands Florida's medical marijuana program, mysteriously vanished from the ballot at a number of locations. The local NORML chapter has expressed their intention to sue one of Florida's largest counties. The timing could not be any worse, when Florida is depending on every last vote.
The Florida chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) recently declared that it would file a lawsuit against the Broward County Commissioner of Elections.
"The plaintiffs are seeking a judicial declaration enjoining the Defendant's from distributing any further ballots, and implementing an emergency plan to issue new ones which insure the inclusion of the proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot," NORML said in a statement.
Incorrect ballot cards could lead to a dire situation, when every vote counts. Florida's last marijuana initiative in 2014 failed by 2%, gaining 58% support when they needed 60% in order to go into effect. It's currently unclear how many ballot cards were affected.
The mistake was caught by former Oakland Park Commissioner Anne Sallee, who noticed her vote-by-mail ballot was missing Amendment 2 altogether. Sallee claims that several of her neighbors had the same issue. According to Sallee, her complaint was ignored by the Broward elections for nearly a week.
Broward County initially responded by denying that any of the ballot cards are missing anything. Broward Elections Supervisor Dr. Brenda Snipes told The Sun-Sentinel "We can't find a copy of a ballot that does not have the marijuana issue on it." The culprit was eventually identified as a support technician for VR Systems, a vendor that Snipes' office had hired. The mistake delayed election results across the state as they waited for Broward County to post their results.
Snipes' office has been involved in past election scandals- In fact, Snipes office was just barely cleared of wrongdoing for posting Primary Election results early.
Election officials began opening vote-by-mail ballots last Monday.
