Florida voters won’t have the opportunity to legalize adult-use cannabis in the November 2026 election, according to state officials, but the fight for a ballot spot is not over.
Florida Secretary of State Cord Byrd’s office announced Feb. 1 that all 22 citizen-proposed constitutional amendments by initiative petition failed to meet the signature requirements for placement on the 2026 General Election ballot.
Under state law, the initiative campaigns needed to collect 880,062 signatures (8% of voters in the last presidential election) by Feb. 1 to qualify for the November 2026 ballot.
Smart & Safe Florida, the political committee behind the adult-use legalization campaign, had 783,592 valid signatures as of Sunday, according to the Florida Division of Elections website. That’s 96,470 short of what the campaign needed.
However, Smart & Safe Florida organizers believe the state’s website doesn’t list an accurate tally, based on what 67 county supervisors of elections verified at the local level. Under Florida law, the secretary of state is responsible for calculating the total number of verified signatures from these local election officials.
According to a Smart & Safe Florida campaign spokesperson, the fight is not over, Florida Politics reported.
“We believe the declaration by the secretary of state is premature, as the final and complete county-by-county totals for validated petitions are not yet reported,” the spokesperson said in a statement to the news outlet. “We submitted over 1.4 million signatures and believe when they are all counted, we will have more than enough to make the ballot.”
Smart & Safe Florida campaign organizers believe that county election offices had validated more than 779,000 signatures as of Jan. 23 – roughly 64,000 more than what state officials had calculated at the time – Florida Politics reported.
But it’s unclear how many of the signatures that make up that difference were disqualified by the state.
A three-judge panel from Florida’s 1st District Court of Appeal ruled on Jan. 23 in favor of the state in disqualifying 70,646 of the campaign’s 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.
Smart & Safe Florida entered an emergency motion on Jan. 25 for a rehearing en banc, meaning the campaign is asking the full 12-judge 1st District to rehear the case, arguing that the panel’s Jan. 23 ruling was flawed because the inactive voter directive from Byrd was unlawful, as no Florida law requires voters to be listed as active to sign a petition.
“The great irony of [Byrd’s] inactive voter directive is that it prohibits counting the petition of an inactive voter who is nonetheless able to show up at the polls, show their driver’s license or other proof of address, and vote for the initiative,” Smart & Safe Florida’s general counsel, Glenn Burhans Jr., wrote in the emergency motion. “In other words, an inactive voter can vote on the amendment, but their petition will not count towards placing the measure on the ballot.”
Smart & Safe Florida also waged a separate legal battle in Leon County, where Circuit Judge Jonathan E. Sjostrom ruled on Jan. 29 that Byrd failed his statutory duty under Section 100.371 of Florida law to provide weekly updates on the total number of verified signatures for the campaign.
The Division of Elections’ website had displayed 675,307 valid signatures for nearly two months – from Nov. 25 to Jan. 22 – until Smart & Safe Florida forced Byrd’s hand in court.
The Division of Elections’ website updated its signature tally for Smart & Safe Florida’s campaign to 714,888 on Jan. 23, to 760,002 on Jan. 26, and to 783,592 on Feb. 1.
In addition to the nearly 71,000 signatures that the three-judge 1st District panel allowed the state to toss in the Jan. 23 ruling, Leon County circuit judge John Cooper allowed Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration to toss another roughly 200,000 signatures in November because those petitions did not include the entire text of the constitutional amendment, the Tallahassee Democrat reported.
Smart & Safe Florida chose not to appeal Cooper’s decision; however, the campaign is still battling to keep the nearly 71,000 signatures on what could be a possible appeal to the state’s Supreme Court.
Still, even if the campaign wins that battle, it would need the 67 county supervisors of elections to verify another 26,000 signatures at the local level that the Division of Elections’ website has yet to reflect to meet the overall statewide threshold for the ballot.
The campaign’s proposed constitutional amendment would let voters decide whether 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.
Trulieve, the largest licensed medical cannabis company in Florida with 163 dispensaries, is primarily funding the campaign, with more than $32.4 million in contributions in 2025, according to campaign finance activity from the Division of Elections.
Trulieve also contributed more than $145 million 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.
