Wyoming Advocates Adamant on Collecting Signatures for Ballot Initiatives

Wyoming advocates are more motivated than ever to get a medical cannabis bill on the 2024 ballot, especially because of miscommunication in required signature counts from the Secretary of State’s office.

Advocates reported that inaccurate information was provided by the Secretary of State Chuck Gray’s office regarding how many signatures were actually needed for their initiatives to qualify for the 2024 ballot. According to the Casper Star Tribune, advocates believed they did not collect enough signatures that were necessary to submit the initiatives for ballot consideration based on the information they received from the office. They didn’t submit the signatures they already had based on that advice, but they actually had enough signatures to qualify.

The combined efforts of Compassionate Options Wyoming, Wyoming NORML, and the Wyoming Libertarian Party, all considered pursuing “political and legal options” due to the inaccurate guidance.

Two initiatives were initially going to be presented for qualification, including one which decriminalized possession for small amounts of cannabis, and another that legalized medical cannabis. Advocates initially announced they were unable to collect enough signatures earlier this year in March.

In late September, the office admitted its fault in recommending that the advocates needed 41,776 signatures, when they only needed 29,730 signatures. “…We are a whole new election team, and we have undertaken a comprehensive review of the initiative process in recent months, primarily due to an initiative currently filed with our office,” the office stated in an email, according to the Pinedale Roundup.

Wyoming NORML executive director Bennett Sondeno responded quickly to the statement, challenging the office’s process. “The people of Wyoming have the constitutional right to petition their government. The cannabis petitions should have been treated the same as the party affiliation initiative,” Sondeno said. “Secretary Gray and his ‘new’ team should have provided the same deference and professionalism to the cannabis petition. Why did they not undertake a ‘comprehensive review of the initiative process’ while there was a pending initiative on the table? Their behavior deprived Wyomingites of their rights,” said.

Historically, efforts for cannabis bills in Wyoming have been met with little support. Wyoming NORML attempted to get a medical cannabis initiative onto the ballot in 2016, but advocates only managed to collect 13,000 signatures, according to NORML Executive Director Bennett Sondeno. “It was pretty bleak,” he explained. Another attempt was made when collecting signatures in January 2022 for the 2022 ballot, but were unable to collect enough signatures back then as well.

The silver lining of the situation is that advocates did collect enough signatures to qualify for the ballot once, and they can do it again. “Either way, this fight is not over. Patients, veterans and Wyoming families succeeded at collecting the signatures. This measure will be law no matter how hard they try to refuse our rights,” advocate Marshall Burt said.

In order for the two cannabis initiatives to still be on the ballot for 2024, it would require them to re-collect signatures from scratch before the legislative session begins. Sondeno called this “unrealistic,” and that it’s not enough time, and more difficult to collect signatures once winter has begun. Additionally, he estimated that it would cost advocacy groups $350,000 to collect enough signatures.

Both Sondeno and Oquirrh Mountain Strategies campaign consultant, Apollo Pazell, are hoping to see if they can have the deadline extended. “It was basically the entire process that was really convoluted and confused,” said Pazell. “I think this will be the first time that I’m saying this, but I think it’s something that legislators should look at.”

In Wyoming, ballot initiatives require a 15% signature count in two-thirds of the state’s counties, which according to the Casper Star Tribune, is the highest requirement in the country. Once advocates receive a petition form from the state, they have 18 months to collect enough signatures, which must be submitted before the start of the legislative session of the same year. In this case, before the legislative session begins in February 2024.

Cannabis bills have not made much headway in the Wyoming legislature in the past. House Bill 0106 was introduced in February 2022 with the intention of decriminalizing small amounts of cannabis but no further actions were taken to discuss or consider it.

Wyoming belongs to a small group of states that do not currently have legal medical cannabis, including Idaho, Kansas, and South Carolina. In addition to this, states such as Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Tennessee, Wisconsin, and Texas all have limited allowances for medical cannabis, but restrict its use to CBD only.

However, advocacy efforts are higher in some of these states, including Kentucky, whose governor has kept progress moving for medical cannabis accessibility. In March, Gov. Andy Beshear signed a medical cannabis bill and became the 38th state to legalize it, but it won’t take effect until January 2025.