Smart and Safe Florida was looking to get an adult-use recreational marijuana amendment on the 2026 ballot.

• A petition group aiming to get recreational marijuana on Florida’s 2026 ballot says the state’s announcement of its failure is premature.
• The group, Smart and Safe Florida, believes it will meet the signature requirement once all submitted petitions are counted.
• Florida’s Secretary of State announced that the group failed to meet the nearly 881,000 verified signature threshold by the February 1 deadline.

A petition group pushing to get recreational marijuana on Florida’s 2026 November statewide ballot is saying the state’s announcement of its failure to gather enough signatures is “premature.”

Secretary of State Cord Byrd announced Feb. 1 that all 22 citizen-led proposed amendments to the state’s constitution failed to meet Florida law’s signature requirements.

Smart and Safe Florida, the group behind adult-use recreational pot, pushed back.

“We believe the declaration by the Secretary of State is premature, as the final and complete county by county totals for validated petitions are not yet reported,” a spokesperson for Smart and Safe Florida said. “We submitted over 1.4 million signatures and believe, when they are all counted, we will have more than enough to make the ballot.”

The group needed to have met 880,062 signatures by Feb. 1, but the Florida Division of Elections website only listed 783,592 verified signatures. For months, the number was slowly trickling upward, since the group had more than 662,000 verified in November.

People flying out of Miami International Airport knew there were going to be significant delays and cancellations due to the winter storm, but they didn’t know they would also be waiting in long lines before even heading inside to catch their flight.

“I mean, I get it, weather is weather. But I mean, if you look at this place, bags aren’t going to make the flights,” said traveler Logan Toby, who is heading to Dallas. “Hopefully, we make the flights.”

People flying out of MIA on Sunday were met by long lines. Already facing the fear that their flight would be impacted by winter weather, their nightmare started in the bag drop-off with a line stretching across the American Airlines ticketing area. 

“It’s a big mess,” said Desiree Cedgwick, who is traveling to Salt Lake City. 

Cedgwick had her sunny vacation impacted last week. 

“Our flight got canceled from Phoenix to Charlotte. So they rerouted us a few different times,” she told CBS News Miami. “We finally made it to Charlotte a day later. Had to get on the cruise that day. We sat on the tarmac for four hours, missed our cruise by three minutes.”

When she got to MIA with her family and saw the baggage line, it was like reliving a nightmare all over again.

“My kids are very nervous to travel back — they keep asking me if their flight’s cancelled or if they’re going to get home,” Cedgwich said. “We’ll get home eventually.” 

Passengers were eventually told that if their bag was tagged to be left in a designated area near the ticketing counter. Bags eventually piled up and sat as travelers made their way to another long line: TSA. 

Marybel Ellen Killburn, who is traveling back home to Tennessee, decided to arrive hours before her flight

“We knew it was going to be impacted, so we went to Joe Stone Crab — an iconic meal. We just got here and we’re going with the flow,” she told CBS News Miami.

Cold weather is causing delays and cancellations at South Florida airports

A spokesperson for MIA told CBS News Miami that due to cancellations and low temperatures, there would be delays with bag processing. 

At MIA, there was a total of 263 delays and 25 cancellations on Sunday. 

At Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, there were 267 delays and 51 cancellations. 

Florida Decides Healthcare suspended their efforts in September due to legal roadblocks.

• A Medicaid expansion campaign is relaunching its effort to get a proposed measure on the 2028 Florida ballot.
• The group, Florida Decides Healthcare, is legally challenging a new state law that restricts the constitutional amendment process.
• The new law, HB 1205, has increased signature verification costs and tightened deadlines for petition groups.

A Medicaid expansion campaign is relaunching a push to get its proposed measure on the 2028 ballot, despite its continuing legal battle against a Florida law restricting the process to amend the state’s constitution.

The group, Florida Decides Healthcare, in September delayed its campaign for the 2026 ballot, saying HB 1205’s roadblocks made it “nearly impossible” to succeed in a shorter timeline. But starting Feb. 1, they’ll launch a digital campaign and send out mail with prepaid return envelopes for voters looking to sign a petition.

They’re hopeful that 2028 will be successful against the hurdles from Florida’s new laws, and especially because they believe they’ll be successful at trial, said Mitch Emerson, the executive director of Florida Decides Healthcare. The trial for their challenge to Florida’s law is scheduled to start Feb. 9.

“The state crossed constitutional lines, and what Florida did here violates the First Amendment rights of Floridians to participate in the constitutional amendment process,” Emerson said. “Every win (against) HB 1205 is a step in the right direction for democracy.”

Expired health care subsidies for the Affordable Care Act have pushed thousands of Floridians off coverage plans, Emerson said, and he said access to Medicaid is paramount in Florida.

More: Legal battles could delay Florida recreational marijuana amendment

HB 1205: Tougher road to the ballot

Florida’s new signature gathering law raised penalties and tightened deadlines for petition groups, along with a provision banning nonresidents and noncitizens from gathering signatures. Another provision limits each volunteer to only collect 25 petitions.

The group may also struggle financially, since supervisors of elections across the state increased their signature verification costs because of the new procedures outlined in the law. In September, Leon County Supervisor of Elections Mark Earley said his office’s fee used to be 85 cents per verified petition, but it increased in $4.16.

More: New petition law threatens 2026 ballot initiatives in Florida

Additionally, Florida officials have fought to uphold the invalidation of petition signatures. A circuit judge in November ruled state officials weren’t wrong to order elections supervisors to dump 200,000 signatures supporting a recreational pot campaign.

Deadlines also are tighter, since all petitions must be turned in to local elections offices within 10 days, and groups can be fined for late petition returns and missing voter information.

Petition groups’ lawsuit against Florida

The Medicaid expansion group filed the lawsuit in May against Florida’s secretary of state, attorney general, the 67 supervisors of elections and the state attorneys, the elected chief prosecutors for each of Florida’s 20 judicial circuits.

Additional groups joined to request parts of the law be blocked, including Smart and Safe Florida, an adult-use recreational pot campaign, and Florida Right to Clean Water.

In July, U.S. District Judge Mark Walker, who sits in Tallahassee, upheld most of the petition law, but he issued an order against the provision on nonresident and noncitizen circulators, saying it imposed a “severe burden on political expression.”