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 one petition received 93,000 signatures and the other received 91,000. Roughly 87,000 valid signatures of registered voters are required to qualify for the November ballot.

Election officials say that, on average, between 10% and 15% of signatures that are submitted for petition drives are deemed invalid after checking. This puts the marijuana petition in question for the November ballot.

“It’s going to be a photo finish,” said Omaha Sen. Wendy DeBoer, who was among those submitting petitions Thursday, July 7 at the Nebraska Secretary of State’s Office in downtown Lincoln.

The group gathered more than enough signatures to qualify for the 2020 ballot, but it was removed from the ballot by the Nebraska Supreme Court after they ruled the initiative violated the state's "single subject" rule.

This year, after losing major donors, the medical marijuana effort had to rely primarily on volunteers to circulate its petitions.

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