Florida Officials Say Marijuana Legalization Campaign Committed ‘Multiple Election Law Violations’

Florida officials have sent a cease-and-desist letter to the campaign seeking to place a marijuana legalization initiative on the state’s 2026 ballot, alleging that the group has “committed multiple election law violations.”

The Office of Election Crimes and Security (OECS)—part of Florida’s Department of State—also fined Smart & Safe Florida more than $120,000 for submitting completed petitions more than 30 days after they were signed.

The issue has been referred to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement for a “potential criminal investigation.”

The campaign was behind last year’s Amendment 3 legalization ballot measure, which failed to win the required 60 percent approval to become law, and is now working to qualify a revised constitutional amendment for next year’s ballot.

Among the claimed violations listed in the letter are that Smart & Safe Florida failed to provide the official text of the proposed constitutional amendment to voters when obtaining signatures as well as that it delivered “forged or fraudulent petitions”—such as one “purportedly signed by a Florida voter in February 2025, when, in fact, that voter has been deceased since November of 2024.”

In a statement to Marijuana Moment, a campaign representative said it has confidence in the process and intends to push back on the state’s assertion it violated election law.

“The claims made appear to be a targeted effort to thwart the ability for the people of Florida to express their support of a citizen-driven amendment,” the statement says. “We stand by the process and had legal counsel vet all forms and communications prior to mailing and look forward to challenging the validity of these claims.”

Other violations claimed by OECS assert that the campaign circulated non-approved petition forms “in a manner that has created the opportunity for fraud and has led to dozens of Florida voters completing and submitting multiple…petitions” and that it submitted completed petitions after a state-mandated deadline.

The letter demands “an immediate accounting of any and all petition forms that were obtained in response to one of your mailed packages that you or your agents have turned in” and further mandates that Smart & Safe Florida “immediately cease the mailing, use, or circulation of non-approved petition forms.”

“Initiative efforts must be undertaken in compliance with the law,” the document says. “The issues raised in this letter are serious and could serve to undermine public confidence in the initiative process.”

The letter, from Brad McVay, Florida’s deputy secretary of state for legal affairs and election integrity, was first published by Florida’s Voice, an outlet that previously reported Smart & Safe Florida had “sent two forms and a return envelope with prepaid postage” to supporters.

“One petition is pre-filled with the voter’s name and voter registration number,” it describes, “while the other is left blank for additional signatures.”

The state asserts the practice appears to have led to an “uptick” in duplicate submissions.

“Voters appear to be signing and submitting the form with the pre-filled information and then also signing and submitting the form without the pre-filled information,” the letter says.

It acknowledges that voters “are doing this despite the following language at the bottom of each form: ‘[i]t is a first degree misdemeanor to knowingly sign the same petition more than once,” but says that more than 100 voters “are either not reading that warning, ignoring it, or being led to believe both forms need to be submitted.”

The letter also charges that instead of including the full text of its legalization amendment with petitions, Smart & Safe Florida was providing “campaign-style literature” with a “printed hyperlink to the text.”

“Simply put, the law requires more,” it says, continuing that revisions to election materials are considered “material changes, and must be approved by the Secretary [of State] before you can use that version of the form.”

In earlier correspondence, Smart & Safe Florida admitted to state officials that its “stack of petitions is believed to contain duplicates.”

“We were specifically targeting multi-family households and intended for the blank form to be completed by someone different than the person identified on the prefiled form,” the group said. “However, it seems some people may have filled out and returned both in their name, leading to duplicates.”

“We do not believe this was done with any malice or purposeful intent—just a case of confusion with the mailing process,” the campaign added.

In his new letter, Deputy Secretary of State McVay says the sponsor “appears to be blaming the voters for the double submissions.”

“Smart & Safe Florida acknowledges the voter confusion, yet you place blame on the voter’s inability to properly follow the mailing process,” he wrote. “Based on our preliminary review, it appears the confusion is attributable to your decision to send two forms.”

A second letter from McVay imposes a $121,850 fine on the campaign for not “promptly” delivering petitions to the state supervisor of elections within 30 days of a voter signing the petition.

“For each petition form that is delivered later than 30 days from the date the elector signed the form, the fine is $50,” it says, “or $250 if the sponsor or petition circulator acted willfully.”

Based on what the state said were 2,437 late-delivered petitions, the $50-apiece fine suggests officials are not alleging the campaign acted willfully.

Smart & Safe Florida, the campaign behind both the current marijuana push and last year’s failed Amendment 3 legalization effort, was recently dealt a separate blow when a state judge dismissed the medical marijuana company Trulieve’s defamation lawsuit against the state Republican Party.

Trulieve was the main financial backer of Smart & Safe Florida’s Amendment 3, spending nearly $100 million trying to pass it. The company filed its defamation suit against the party ahead of November’s election, alleging the GOP knowingly deceived voters about the proposed change. Trulieve argued the party’s opposition campaign was “intentionally deceptive,” with “demonstrably false” claims that were “trying to fool Florida voters” into opposing the reform.

Last year’s marijuana proposal did receive a majority of the vote, but Florida’s 60 percent requirement for constitutional amendments meant the push was unsuccessful. That was despite outsized funding—chiefly from Trulieve—and an endorsement from President Donald Trump.

Smart & Safe Florida is now gearing up for next year’s ballot fight, working to collect the 891,523 signatures needed to qualify for the the 2026 election.

The campaign’s 2026 iteration includes several changes that seem responsive to issues raised by critics about the 2024 version.

For example, there’s new clarifying language prohibiting the sale of marijuana products that are marketed in a way that might be appealing to children.

It further explicitly states that nothing in the measure would “prohibit the legislature from providing for the home growing of marijuana by adults for their personal use and the reasonable regulation thereof.” That clarification may assuage concerns from certain advocates who criticized the lack of a home grow option in the original proposal.

The initiative would also make it so medical marijuana operators that have been licensed as of January 1, 2025 would be able to start providing for adult-use sales starting on the effective date.

Another nuance in the new proposal concerns licensure for businesses that want to enter the space in the future. Some worried that the prior version could effectively create a monopoly benefitting the existing medical marijuana operators alone because it simply said the legislature wasn’t prohibited from allowing additional licenses, without a mandate to actually take up that issue.

In early March, however, a legislative panel in the state advanced a plan that would impose significant restrictions on the ability to put initiatives on the ballot, which could hamper legalization efforts.

A recently published survey from the University of North Florida found that, despite last year’s ballot proposal failing, there’s overwhelming, bipartisan voter support for the legalization. It showed that 67 percent of Florida voters now back the reform, including 82 percent of Democrats, 66 percent of independents and 55 percent of Republicans.

The results conflict with another recent poll from the Florida Chamber of Commerce, a proactive opponent of legalization, that found majority support for the reform among likely voter (53 percent) but not enough to be enacted under the 60 percent requirement.

Meanwhile, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), a staunch critic of legalization, said in January that the latest version of the legalization initiative is in “big time trouble” with the state Supreme Court, predicting it will be blocked from going before voters next year.

“There’s a lot of different perspectives on on marijuana,” DeSantis said. “It should not be in our Constitution. If you feel strongly about it, you have elections for the legislature. Go back candidates that you believe will be able to deliver what your vision is on that.”

“But when you put these things in the Constitution—and I think, I mean, the way they wrote, there’s all kinds of things going on in here. I think it’s going to have big time trouble getting through the Florida Supreme Court,” he said.

Last year, the governor accurately predicted that the 2024 cannabis measure from the campaign would survive a legal challenge from the state attorney general. It’s not entirely clear why he feels this version would face a different outcome.

Separately, a Florida GOP senator claimed recently that the legalization campaign “tricked” Trump into supporting the 2024 measure by misleading him and the general public about key provisions.

Ahead of the election, Trump said in September that he felt Amendment 3 was “going to be very good” for the state.

Before making the comments, Trump met with the CEO of Trulieve, Kim Rivers, as well as with a GOP state senator who is in favor of the reform.

While Trump endorsed the Florida cannabis initiative—as well as federal rescheduling and industry banking access—he has since been silent on cannabis issues. And his cabinet choices have mixed records on marijuana policy.

Read both letters from Deputy Secretary of State Brad McVay to Smart & Safe Florida:

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