Florida’s adult-use cannabis legalization initiative remains short of the required signatures to land a question on the November 2026 ballot, and an appellate court decision just made a quickly approaching deadline more difficult to meet.
Smart & Safe Florida, the political committee behind the ballot campaign, had 714,888 verified signatures as of Jan. 23, needing 165,174 more signatures by Feb. 1 to qualify its proposed amendment, according to the Florida Division of Elections.
Overall, Smart & Safe Florida needs 880,062 valid signatures to secure its ballot position.
But the committee’s pathway to the 2026 ballot narrowed significantly on Jan. 23, when Florida’s 1st District Court of Appeal ruled in favor of the state in disqualifying 70,646 of the campaign’s signatures.
The two-part appeal stems from a lawsuit Smart & Safe Florida filed against Secretary of State Cord Byrd and Leon County Supervisor of Elections Mark Earley in circuit court.
In September and December, Byrd directed county election officials to invalidate 70,646 signatures, including 28,752 petitions collected by non-U.S. citizens or non-Florida residents who worked for the campaign, and another 41,894 petitions signed by voters designated as “inactive” under state law, according to the lawsuit.
Earlier this month, Leon County Circuit Judge Jonathan E. Sjostrom granted summary judgment and ruled that the 28,752 petitions circulated by non-residents could be invalidated; however, he declared that the state’s attempt to invalidate the 41,894 petitions signed by inactive voters was unlawful.
Smart & Safe Florida appealed the first part of the ruling, while Byrd appealed the latter.
The three-judge panel of the 1st District issued a 10-page opinion on Jan. 23, ruling in favor of the state on both appeals, meaning all 70,646 signatures in question were allowed to be invalidated.
Smart & Safe Florida had argued that the inactive voter directive was unlawful because no Florida law required voters to be listed as active to sign a petition. The appellate court didn’t agree, ruling that once a voter becomes inactive, he or she “must take affirmative action” to be restored to active voter status.
The failure to act by the second general election after being placed on the state’s inactive list results in the removal of the voter’s name from the statewide registration system, according to the 1st District.
“There was nothing unlawful about the secretary’s providing written directions to the supervisors on how to perform their official duties to verify petitions submitted by inactive voters,” 1st District Judge Lori S. Rowe wrote in the opinion. “Rather, the secretary had specific statutory authority to provide directions to supervisors on how they should perform their official duties.”
In 2025, the Florida Legislature passed legislation to amend the state constitution, requiring that petition circulators must be U.S. citizens and Florida residents “in light of ongoing fraudulent activity,” according to the appellate court.
After the legislation became effective, a federal district court issued a preliminary injunction in July 2025 that prevented the Florida Division of Elections from enforcing the new law; however, the 11th Circuit vacated that injunction two months later.
Two days after the injunction was lifted, Byrd directed county election officials to designate any signatures collected by non-U.S. citizens/non-Florida residents as invalid.
Smart & Safe Florida argued that the petitions collected during the two-month injunction period were lawfully collected. The court system didn’t see it that way.
“Having considered the parties’ arguments and the governing law, we affirm the circuit court’s order denying relief to [Smart & Safe Florida] on the nonresident-circulator directive,” Rowe wrote.
As of Jan. 26, six days before the Feb. 1 deadline, the Division of Elections lists 760,002 valid signatures collected by Smart & Safe Florida but includes an asterisk next to that number. That’s because county election officials are “currently correcting their records pursuant to [the lawsuit]” and “such corrections may not be reflected.”
The actual signature count may not be reflected until well after the Feb. 1 deadline.
Smart & Safe Florida is fighting a separate court battle, challenging the Division of Elections on whether it is accurately providing verified signature count updates on its website, the South Florida Sun Sentinel reported.
Smart & Safe Florida’s proposed constitutional amendment intends to allow adults 21 and older to possess, purchase or use up to 2 ounces of cannabis or 5 grams of concentrate for non-medical consumption in the Sunshine State.
Similar to Smart & Safe Florida’s unsuccessful 2024 amendment – which gained 56% support at the polls but fell short of the 60% supermajority threshold needed to pass – the 2026 proposal would allow the state’s medical cannabis licensees to transition their operations to serve the adult-use marketplace.
The 2026 proposal would also ban smoking or vaping cannabis in public places, such as parks, beaches, public transit, roads, sidewalks and trails. And it would prohibit marketing or packaging cannabis in a manner that’s attractive to children.
The proposal directs the Legislature to adopt legislation to regulate a commercial marketplace and does not prevent the Legislature from enacting other laws consistent with the amendment.
Smart & Safe Florida’s 2026 legalization push almost mirrors what the committee proposed in 2024, when its campaign collected more than 1 million verified signatures, far more than what was required for that election cycle.
In the weeks leading up to the November 2024 election, Gov. Ron DeSantis led a taxpayer-funded advertisement campaign against the campaign, with videos from state agencies warning of the “dangers” of legalization. The state called these videos “public service announcements,” while Trulieve CEO Kim Rivers, whose cannabis company bankrolled the campaign with more than $145 million in contributions, called them “state-sponsored propaganda.”
