There’s not enough proof that an anti-cannabis campaign in Massachusetts tricked voters into signing a petition aiming to repeal the state’s legalization laws, a commission ruled on Jan. 22.
The Massachusetts State Ballot Law Commission issued a decision overruling an objection filed against the initiative petition, allowing the prohibition proposal to advance toward potentially landing on the November 2026 state ballot.
The petition, “An Act to Restore a Sensible Marijuana Policy,” would not only eliminate adult-use dispensary sales in the state’s $1.6 billion licensed market, but it would also ban home grows for those 21 and older, who can currently cultivate up to six plants for personal use under a voter-approved measure passed with a 53.7% majority in 2016.
Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin’s election staff certified 78,301 signatures last month that the Coalition for a Healthy Massachusetts Inc. collected to advance its prohibition proposal. However, following complaints that canvassers used deceptive and misleading tactics to trick voters into signing the petition, attorney Thomas Kiley filed a challenge to the question on Jan. 2.
To prevail, Kiley needed to prove that at least 3,727 voters were tricked and otherwise would not have signed the petition. But instead of attempting to prove 3,727 individual signers were misled, he challenged all signatures gathered by a specific canvasser, whom he said misled the signers.
Kiley also argued that the Massachusetts State Ballot Law Commission has “an independent duty to investigate” with no deadline. The commission determined that the secretary of state’s office only received 31 email complaints and put the burden of proof upon Kiley as the objector.
“The objector’s call that the unsupported allegations contained in the objection ‘raise serious questions about the petition’s integrity that warrant further scrutiny from the commission itself’ rings hollow given that absolutely no admissible evidence has been presented or offered supporting the allegations made,” the State Ballot Law Commission wrote in the Jan. 22 decision.
Galvin serves as clerk to the independent five-member commission appointed by the governor.
The body’s decision comes despite the Committee to Protect Cannabis Regulation, a pro-cannabis group, releasing polling data last week, which found that more than 1,100 of roughly 2,300 survey respondents felt they were misled, saying they would not have signed the petition had they known its true intent, The Boston Globe reported.
Patrick Strawbridge, the attorney who represents the prohibition campaign, suggested that the pro-cannabis legalization group’s survey did not provide meaningful results because the respondents weren’t confirmed petition signers, and that the number of those who felt misled in the survey still fell short of the 3,727 voters needed to disqualify the petition.
The State Ballot Law Commission also noted the lack of admissible evidence in the Jan 22 decision.
“By his own admission, the objector ‘acknowledges that the evidence submitted to date does not yet establish a sufficient number of invalid signatures to disqualify’ the petitions,” the commission wrote. “Even the objector’s offer of proof falls far short of establishing that he could produce adequate evidence to support his claims.”
The ballot commission’s decision comes following the Coalition for a Healthy Massachusetts’ campaign finance activity report filing on Jan. 20, which revealed that the prohibitionist group Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM) Action Inc. contributed $1.55 million to the campaign, single-handedly funding the signature drive for a 2026 ballot proposal.
With the State Ballot Law Commission’s rejection of the challenge, Galvin’s office transported the certified initiative petition to the Massachusetts Legislature, where state lawmakers have until May 5 to consider enacting the proposal legislatively. If lawmakers don’t act by May 5, then the campaign has until July 1 to collect another 12,429 signatures required to place the question on the November 2026 ballot.
“With this decision, the certification of this round of petitions has now formally ended, and all 11 initiatives are now before the Legislature,” Galvin said Jan. 22. “If the Legislature chooses not to pass any of the initiatives, the petitioners will have the opportunity to begin the final round of signature gathering in May.”
