A Nebraska judge is allowing the votes on two medical cannabis legalization initiatives on the state’s ballot to be counted and posted.
Lancaster County District Court Judge Susan Strong on Friday denied a request to halt the tallies or suppress posting the results before election workers started counting early votes at 8 a.m. CT Monday, according to the Lincoln Journal Star.
The late-inning legal challenge against the Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana campaign – which was supported by top Republican officials – aimed to confirm the validity of tens of thousands of the 115,000 signatures submitted from registered voters that were certified by the secretary of state.
Strong on Friday also denied a request to delay the trial, the Nebraska Examiner reported.
Attorneys representing a former state senator – who had sued Secretary of State Bob Evnen to stop the certification of thousands of petitions submitted by Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana campaign – and the state’s attorney general requested a temporary restraining order before ballot counting began Monday morning.
The first set of voting results are set to be released at 8 p.m. CT Tuesday, the Journal Star reported.
“The status quo in this case is that the secretary of state has certified these ballot initiatives and ballots have been printed and people are already voting on them,” Strong said, according to the newspaper.
“I don’t know that I have the authority, as a district court judge in Lancaster County, to prevent 93 counties in the state of Nebraska from tabulating and publishing their votes.”
