“We really encourage citizens to think about what you’re signing, why you’re signing it, and what it means.”
By Emma Davis, Maine Morning Star
In downtown Portland, as hundreds of Mainers gathered for an anti-ICE protest Saturday, others were there to gather signatures for a petition to repeal recreational marijuana in Maine.
Though, they didn’t present it as such. It’s about the testing of cannabis, one petitioner said.
Misrepresentation of this citizen initiative by signature gatherers has been documented across the state over the last few days. On Monday, state legislators asked the overseer of elections, Secretary of State Shenna Bellows (D), what could be done about it.
“Petitioners have a First Amendment right to say whatever they want to say,” Bellows said during a meeting of the Veterans and Legal Affairs Committee.
Sen. Craig Hickman (D-Kennebec), committee co-chair, chimed in, “You have a right to lie under the First Amendment.”
Maine has a citizen-initiated referendum process that allows average people to propose statutes or constitutional amendments to be put on the ballot if they gather enough signatures. Bellows doesn’t have the authority to take any enforcement action over the truth of what is being said about such petitions, only about the validity of what’s
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