The legal tug-of-war over whether a ballot initiative to expand Arkansas’ medical marijuana program has come to an end, with the state’s Supreme Court ruling in a split decision that votes for the proposal cannot be counted because the measure’s name and title are misleading.

The ballot question, known formally as Issue 3, will be on the November ballot because it’s too close to Election Day to have it removed, but the Arkansas secretary of state won’t tabulate any votes cast for it now, given the high court’s ruling, the Arkansas Advocate reported. The court was split on the issue, and two justices recused themselves.

Associate Justice Shawn Womack wrote in the majority opinion that the measure’s name, the Arkansas Medical Marijuana Amendment of 2024, has ramifications beyond medical uses of cannabis. In particular, Womack wrote, the measure also contains a trigger law that would legalize recreational cannabis if marijuana was also legalized at the federal level.

In addition, Womack wrote, the campaign did not “adequately” communicate to voters that the measure would quash the state legislature’s legal ability to tweak Amendment 98, the 2016 ballot question which legalized medical marijuana.

The bottom line is the measure is “plainly misleading,” Womack wrote, according to ABC News.

Womack was joined in the majority by special Justices Don Curdie and Bilenda Harris-Ritter, who took over for Chief Justice Dan Kemp and Justice Courtney Hudson after they recused themselves from the case. Justices Karen Baker, Rhonda Wood and Cody Hiland dissented, the Advocate reported. Hiland penned a scathing dissent, in which he slammed the court for not following decades of precedent with regard to ballot questions.

The conclusion to the legal drama comes after weeks of back-and-forth between Secretary of State John Thurston and Arkansans for Patient Access, the campaign that was behind the measure. Thurston originally found that the campaign didn’t submit enough signatures to make the November ballot after APA in July submitted about 114,000 voter petitions.

During a 30-day “cure” period, the campaign gathered even more, putting its total above 150,000, when it needed 90,704 valid signatures to make the ballot. In August, Thurston said it still hadn’t qualified.

APA filed suit against Thurston’s office, and the state Supreme Court ordered Thurston to finish counting the signatures that had been filed, before ruling on Monday that the number of signatures was a moot point because of the ballot title and language problems.

The APA said in a statement that it was “deeply disappointed” in the ruling and pledged to continue working to expand medical cannabis access in Arkansas, ABC News reported.

“It seems politics has triumphed over legal precedent,” the organization said.

Cannabis opponents celebrated the legal ruling. Jerry Cox, the executive director of Family Council Action Committee, told ABC News, “A measure this bad simply has no business being on the ballot or in the constitution.”

A campaign to legalize recreational marijuana in Arkansas was shot down by voters in 2022. Issue 3 would have broadened the existing medical marijuana landscape by legalizing home cultivation for patients, increasing the number of medical professionals allowed to write patient recommendations, and by upping the number of medical ailments that qualify patients for the program.

The Arkansas Secretary of State’s office must finish counting roughly 18,000 signatures that were submitted in support of a ballot measure to expand the state’s medical marijuana program, the state Supreme Court ordered, a move that could place the question before voters in November.

Arkansas Secretary of State John Thurston earlier this week denied the measure a spot on the upcoming ballot and said his office calculated that the campaign behind the measure – Arkansans for Patient Access – had only submitted about 88,000 valid voter signatures, just shy of the roughly 90,000 needed to qualify.

The campaign immediately sued, arguing that thousands of signatures collected during a 30-day cure period were improperly rejected. The state Supreme Court on Wednesday issued a preliminary injunction requiring Thurston’s office to count roughly 18,000 signatures he had previously said were not allowed because they’d been improperly filed, KUAR reported.

The Wednesday order from the court granted the campaign’s request for an expedited review and said Thurston is “ordered to immediately begin verifying the (~18,000) remaining signatures submitted during the cure period until the 90,704 threshold or just beyond is met.”

The signatures in question, collected by paid signature gatherers, were disqualified by Thurston’s office because representatives of the canvassing company, rather than the ballot measure sponsor, signed off on and then filed them, which is against state law, Thurston’s office said.

The order gave Thurston a deadline of noon on Friday to file a notice of compliance with the court. Legal briefs from both sides are due by 4 p.m. Friday afternoon.

If the measure does wind up being approved by voters, it would expand the existing medical cannabis industry by increasing the number of qualifying medical conditions for eligible patients to purchase marijuana, up the number of health care providers allowed to write patient recommendations, and legalize home cultivation.

The campaign follows a failed ballot measure in 2022 that would have legalized recreational marijuana.

The political campaign trying to get a ballot measure before Arkansas voters to expand the state’s medical marijuana program filed a lawsuit against officials this week after its initiative was ruled ineligible for the November election, alleging that the secretary of state used a subjective interpretation of law to disqualify their measure.

Arkansans for Patient Access, the campaign behind the measure, argued in its lawsuit that Secretary of State John Thurston used a narrow definition of state legal requirements that the “sponsor” of a given ballot measure must be responsible for all official filings, as opposed to workers or volunteers with the campaign, KUAR reported.

That, the suit claims, is “nonsensical,” the Arkansas NPR affiliate reported, and the campaign is requesting that the state Supreme Court reverse the findings by Thurston.

Arkansans for Patient Access submitted more than 150,000 voter signatures, far beyond the roughly 90,000 needed to qualify for the upcoming November ballot, but Thurston’s office found that the campaign had still fallen short, with only about 88,000 signatures deemed valid.

The suit also claims that both Thurston and Attorney General Tim Griffin violated laws related to the ballot measure certification by delegating various tasks related to signature verification instead of performing those tasks directly themselves, KUAR reported.

The campaign is asking a state court for an “expedited review” of its lawsuit given the coming election next month.

Although the ballot question is now technically not before voters, it will still appear on actual ballots since they have already been printed, KUAR reported. The lawsuit will decide whether votes cast on the question will actually be counted, or the law implemented if it wins.

The measure would expand Arkansas’ medical cannabis industry by increasing the number of medical professionals allowed to write patient recommendations, legalize home cultivation for medical cannabis patients, and increase the number of medical ailments that make patients eligible to purchase marijuana.

A ballot measure that would have legalized recreational marijuana failed in 2022.

As it stands, recreational cannabis legalization ballot questions will appear before voters in Florida, North Dakota and South Dakota. Nebraska voters will also get to decide whether to legalize medical marijuana.