Ella Adams
State House News Service

A Massachusetts state commission on Thursday dismissed an objection to the ballot question measure that would give voters an opportunity to repeal an existing state law that makes recreational marijuana legal. 

The State Ballot Law Commission ruling ends a challenge attorney Thomas Kiley filed to the question on January 2, centered on concerns about how signatures in support of the proposed ballot initiative were collected. 

Secretary of State William Galvin’s office in December certified 78,301 signatures for the initiative petition, which would repeal adult-use marijuana in Massachusetts. That's enough to keep the measure on track for the ballot. The commission rejected Kiley's challenge.

"The Objector’s call that the unsupported allegations contained in the Objection ‘raise serious questions about the Petition’s integrity that warrant further scrutiny from the Commission itself’ rings hollow given that absolutely no admissible evidence has been presented or offered supporting the allegations made," the commission said in a ten-page ruling signed by all five commission members.

The respondent's attorney Patrick Strawbridge said at a pre-hearing conference on Monday, January 12 that there wasn't sufficient evidence to dispose of enough signatures to knock the petition out of the running for the November ballot. Kiley would have had to prove that 3,727 certified signatures were obtained fraudulently.

Strawbridge filed a motion for a summary decision and denied Kiley's allegations. Kiley responded in a filing Tuesday, January 13 that he didn't "intend" to present evidence dealing with 3,727 individuals and didn't feel it was necessary to conduct an evidentiary hearing.

In addition, the commission wrote that the evidence Kiley had intended to introduce was "not material and directly relating to the issue before the Commission: whether the signatures of voters were obtained fraudulently through misleading information. As such, the Commission would find these inadmissible."

The commission wrote that Kiley's evidence included 31 email messages of citizen complaints to Galvin's office, 32 "reports" made to the committee formed to protect cannabis regulation, Kiley's testimony, and "polling data" that included the script used when contacting people whose names were certified as signing the petition.

Kiley in his opposition requested that the commission conduct an investigation into alleged misleading practices without a deadline. Strawbridge claimed in response that the commission is bound by statutory deadlines and has no authority to conduct an investigation into the petitioning process outside of the timeframe at hand. The commission also disagreed that it had a duty to investigate the process. 

Asked for his reaction to the decision, Kiley told State House News Service that, "The decision is not an unexpected decision, we did not identify a requisite number of individual signers."

"The request was that the commission undertake an investigation to approve the process for the submission and evaluation of signatures, and that is a worthwhile goal," he added. "Improving the process to eliminate the potential for misleading [signature gathering] is a matter of moments, and this is a moment to consider it."

The commission was under a deadline of today — Friday, January 23 — to rule on the objection. 

The initiative petitions will now be transported to the Massachusetts House of Representatives, according to Galvin's office. They'll join the ten other certified proposals Galvin's office dropped off on Tuesday, January 6.