State declines appeal, raising ballot hopes for legal pot in Maine
Source: Bangor Daily News
AUGUSTA, Maine — Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap won’t appeal a judge’s ruling overturning his decision to invalidate a marijuana legalization referendum, potentially clearing it for the November ballot.
His office will now review thousands of signatures that it threw out in March, and a top proponent said “we’re confident that we collected far more valid signatures of Maine voters than are required to qualify for the ballot.”
Superior Court Justice Michaela Murphy overruled Dunlap on Friday, finding that he “committed an error of law” by invalidating the question in March largely because he found that the signature of a notary — Stavros Mendros, president of Olympic Consulting in Lewiston — didn’t match a signature on file with Dunlap’s office.
Referendum proponents, led by the national Marijuana Policy Project, submitted 99,000 signatures to the state in February, well over the minimum of 61,123 valid signatures needed. But Dunlap threw out nearly half for a variety of problems, and proponents appealed.
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Read more: http://bangordailynews.com/2016/04/13/politics/state-house/maine-marijuana-legalization-question-clears-another-hurdle/