Pubdate: Thu, 20 Jan 2005
Source: Reno News & Review (NV)
Copyright: 2005, Chico Community Publishing, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.newsreview.com/issues/reno/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2524
Author: Dennis Myers
Cited: Marijuana Policy Project ( www.mpp.org )
Cited: American Civil Liberties Union ( www.aclu.org )
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/marijuana+initiative
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)

POT PROPONENTS FILE LAWSUIT

Supporters of changes in Nevada marijuana laws have gone to court to
force the state to process their initiative petition.

The Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) and the American Civil Liberties
Union of Nevada filed suit on Jan. 12 against the Nevada secretary of
state, who, together with the state attorney general, increased the
number of signatures needed for ballot petitions, disqualifying every
petition submitted, not just the marijuana measure.

Groups circulating ballot petitions, acting on the advice of county
and state election officials, gathered enough signatures to equal 10
percent of the number of voters who went to the polls in 2002, a
non-presidential year with low turnout.

After the different groups turned in their signatures, petitioners
were told they needed signatures from 10 percent of the number who
voted in the 2004 presidential, the first post-World War II election
that showed a substantial gain in voter turnout. That torpedoed every
successful petition. The groups circulating ballot petitions called it
a case of changing the rules after the game was played. Bruce Mirkin
of MPP said telling the signature gatherers to collect one number of
signatures before the election and then changing it to a different
number afterward breaches the nation's basic law.

"The unannounced and arbitrary changes to what had been established
election procedures clearly violate the due-process clause of the 13th
Amendment, which is one of the hearts of the legal argument. ... [T]he
reasoning was conjured up to match the result they wanted. A
reasonable mind would suspect that."

The marijuana advocates especially object to the position taken by the
Attorney General's Office that a petition is not filed when it's
filed. The AG says it's filed not when it is handed over the counter
to county clerks but when election officials have validated all the
signatures and certified the petition.

That would mean, Mirken says, that if the petitioners had turned in
their petitions before the 2004 election, they would still have had to
comply with a "turnout standard of an election that hadn't taken place
yet."

Other ballot petitions disqualified because of the revised standards
for signatures included anti-tobacco measures, and at least one of the
groups sponsoring those measures is also going to court to get its
petition on the ballot. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake