By Ernie Langdon

A constitutional amendment must be on the ballot of a statewide General Election and receive sixty percent of the total vote to become law.

The proposed Medical Marijuana amendment has wide popularity. A recent Quinnipiac University Poll showed that 82 percent of the voters in Florida favor the amendment. Yet, a very popular amendment might have a problem if it is not well understood by the voters. The requirement that sixty percent of the voters must vote yes can still be derailed by a well-funded negative campaign.

The sixty percent of the vote is the last hurdle that this proposed amendment must clear to become law. Last week the Division of Elections announced that the required petitions have been submitted to put the medical marijuana amendment on the ballot. This week the Florida Supreme Court ruled 4 to 3 that the language of the proposed amendment was proper. This means it will be on the ballot on November 4th.

Let’s take a quick look at the number of signed petitions required. First of all the petitions must be signed by a registered Florida Voter. The number required is eight percent of the number of voters who voted in the last election. In the 2012 General Election 8,539,363 votes were cast statewide. That means that 683,149 petitions were required.

There is an additional requirement that 14 of the 27 congressional districts must also meet a required number of signed petitions. The requirement is that 14 of the congressional districts must also have a number of signed petitions equal or greater than eight percent of the votes cast in that district In the last election. The map below shows which fourteen districts met the requirement. Our Congressional District 7 was one of the fourteen. The District 7 quota was 26,719 and as of 1/24/14 the Division of Elections had 30,049 valid petitions from District 7.