A Leon County, Florida circuit judge has ruled that state officials were correct to order election supervisors to scrap more than 200,000 petition signatures collected by the Smart & Safe Florida campaign to put an adult-use cannabis legalization question before voters next year, the News Service of Florida reports.

The ruling by Circuit Judge John Cooper sides with Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and the Division of Elections Director Maria Matthews, who claimed some of the petitions were invalid because signing voters were not provided with the full text of the constitutional amendment.

Additionally, officials said that the campaign had used unapproved petition forms to collect signatures (the approved form had a blank back page, while some of the submitted petitions had a link to the campaign’s website on the back, where visitors could read the full text of the proposed cannabis amendment).

Campaign representatives from Smart & Safe Florida said they will appeal Friday’s decision.

“We fervently but respectfully disagree with this ruling and fully intend to appeal it as voters deserve and overwhelmingly want to have their voices heard on this important matter.” — Smart & Safe Florida campaign statement, via the News Service of Florida

The Smart & Safe Florida campaign has until February 1, 2026, to submit more than 880,000 verified voter signatures to qualify for the November 2026 ballot. As of Friday, the Division of Elections online tracker showed the campaign had submitted 676,307 signatures — the disputed signatures represent a little under a third of that total, the report said.

It’s not the campaign’s first lawsuit this year alleging election interference by Florida officials — in late October, Smart & Safe Florida argued in another suit that officials had “failed to perform an indisputable legal duty” by not confirming the campaign’s signature-gathering milestones, effectively delaying the campaign’s next steps. Last week, Attorney General James Uthmeier asked the Supreme Court to toss that lawsuit after election officials finally advanced the proposal.