LINCOLN — Two well-funded initiative petition drives appear to be headed for a vote in November, while a third — to legalize medical cannabis - looks iffy to gain a place on the ballot.

“We’ll know in the next couple of months if we qualify or not,” said State Sen. Anna Wishart of Lincoln, who co-chaired the signature drive conducted by Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana.

Wishart said the predominantly volunteer effort submitted 93,000 signatures for one of its two petitions, and 91,000 for the other. About 87,000 valid signatures of registered voters are needed to qualify for the ballot. Election officials say that, typically, between 10% and 15% of signatures submitted for such petition drives are deemed invalid after checking. So that makes it uncertain if the marijuana petition drive will qualify.

Meanwhile supporters of the move to increase the minimum wage 'Raise the Wage Nebraska' estimated Thursday that about 150,000 Nebraskans would benefit from raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour. That is about 20% of the state’s workforce, they said.

State Sen. Julie Slama and other backers of the initiative to require voters to provide ID at the polling place said Thursday they submitted 172,000 signatures to qualify the issue for the November ballot.

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