Siding with Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration, a Leon County circuit judge on Friday ruled that state officials did not err when ordering supervisors of elections to scrap more than 200,000 petition signatures supporting a proposed constitutional amendment to allow recreational marijuana.
Circuit Judge John Cooper’s ruling wiped out roughly a third of the signatures submitted by the Smart & Safe Florida political committee, which is backing the proposal. The committee, which faces a Feb. 1 deadline to submit more than 880,000 verified signatures for placement on the 2026 ballot, quickly vowed to appeal the decision.
Lawyers for Smart & Safe Florida filed the lawsuit to challenge an Oct. 3 directive by state Division of Elections Director Maria Matthews requiring supervisors to scrap petitions that did not include the full text of the proposed constitutional amendment. The committee sent the petitions to voters, and the state alleged signatures were “not obtained legally.”
The lawsuit argued that nothing in Florida law requires that “the full text” of a proposal be provided or displayed to voters before they sign petitions.
State elections officials also argued the flagged petitions needed to be invalidated because Smart & Safe Florida made changes to the format of the petition form approved by Secretary of State Cord Byrd’s office. The state alleged the format was changed without permission in violation of Florida law.
The front of the disputed form was identical to the petition that was approved, which had a blank back page. The back of the forms deemed to be invalid by Matthews included a link to Smart & Safe Florida’s website, where the full text of the proposed amendment can be found.
“This is not something that the secretary just came up with out of whole cloth,” Ben Gibson, an attorney for Byrd, said during a hearing Friday.
Florida law says that “signatures obtained on an unapproved form cannot be counted,” Gibson, who works for the Shutts & Bowen LLP firm, argued.
“That is not an interpretation. That is the black letter law of the statute,” he added.
But Glenn Burhans, who represents Smart & Safe Florida, told Cooper the committee did not seek sign-off on the form mailed to voters because the petition was identical to the one approved by the state.
“We didn’t request a change because there was no change to the layout,” Burhans, an attorney with the Stearns Weaver Miller firm, argued. “Anybody … would say these are identical. There’s no change within the border of the document.”
Noting that state election laws and regulations “should be strictly construed,” Cooper said he “wavered back and forth” on how to rule.
“I think Mr. Gibson has pointed out to my satisfaction the statutory provision that says if one is not using the forms prescribed by the secretary of state, then they are not valid,” the judge said.
Smart & Safe Florida appeared to engage in a procedure “in good faith to comply with the law and get to the requisite number of petitions they need to get on the ballot,” Cooper observed.
The crux of the case was whether the form that was approved by Byrd’s office “was changed and whether that change was material,” Cooper said.
“I think there was a change made to the approved petition because it has the language on the back,” he said. “I define layout as what happened here. ... What happened on the back of that first form, that’s a change of layout. Therefore it’s a material change that was not approved by the secretary of state, therefore I must find that petitions that were at issue here … with that change, are not enforceable.”
Smart and Safe Florida officials said they intend to appeal Cooper’s decision.
“We fervently but respectfully disagree with this ruling and fully intend to appeal it as voters deserve and overwhelmingly want to have their voices heard on this important matter," the committee said in a text message.
While Smart & Safe Florida is required to submit 880,062 valid signatures by Feb. 1, Burhans told Cooper that the deadline is functionally a month earlier because supervisors of elections need 30 days to process petitions. According to the state Division of Elections website, the committee had submitted 675,307 valid signatures as of Friday —- including the disputed 200,000 petitions. The number of valid signatures appeared to be dropping this week: The website showed 675,334 valid signatures on Tuesday.
Byrd’s office sent a cease-and-desist letter to the committee about the disputed petitions in March. A new law that went into effect in July requires that the full text of the amendment be included on the petition.
The new law also required county supervisors of elections to stop processing petition signatures for a 90-day period, which ended Sept. 30 — days before Matthews’ missive.
Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2024 led efforts to defeat a proposed recreational-marijuana amendment sponsored by Smart & Safe Florida. With the committee taking another run at the issue in 2026, it has clashed with Byrd on a number of fronts.
Byrd’s office on Monday took initial steps to trigger Florida Supreme Court review of the measure, a crucial step in ballot placement.
That move came on the last day of a deadline set by justices for the DeSantis administration to respond to a lawsuit filed by Smart & Safe Florida accusing elections officials of improperly holding up the ballot measure.
During arguments Friday, Gibson reminded Cooper of problems with the 2000 presidential election, which spawned a protracted legal battle over a recount in Florida.
“In a state as large and diverse as Florida,” with 67 county supervisors of elections, “it is vitally important that we have uniformity in the interpretation of the election code,” Gibson argued.
Burhans disputed some of the state’s arguments by pointing to a classic scene from a Marx Brothers movie.
“Who are you going to believe, the secretary or your own eyes?” Burhans asked Cooper.
“I think the phrase goes, your lyin’ eyes,” Cooper quipped.
Gibson referred to the exchange later in the day, after arguments that included numerous references to the movie, “My Cousin Vinny.”
“It is very clear that (in) the original form approved, the layout was blank on the back. The petition form that was provided in the mail … has words on the back,” Gibson said. “I’m not good at movie quotes … but you can see with your own eyes.”
