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The narrative has developed that 74% of the individuals who went to the polls in November supported medical marijuana legalization.
However in actuality, the convoluted course of enacted by legislators used to put an alternative choice to a citizen-sponsored initiative on the poll makes it tough to gauge the exact degree of assist for medical marijuana.
Nonetheless, that narrative led to the creation of the “We’re the 74” group and Fb web page referencing the 74% of voters who presumably voted in favor of legalizing medical marijuana.
“We’re the 74” is the rallying cry of a lot of individuals who need the Legislature to approve medical marijuana — sooner quite than later — after the Mississippi Supreme Courtroom struck down the medical marijuana initiative permitted overwhelmingly by voters.
It’s inaccurate to say that 74% of people that went to the polls in November favored the legalization of medical marijuana. It might be true to say that the November vote signifies a robust majority favored medical marijuana legalization.
Granted, within the grand scheme, it makes little distinction whether or not medical marijuana assist on the polls in November was at 65%, 75% or another overwhelming quantity. Nonetheless, you will need to present correct data and the context of that assist.
The 74% is the share of people that voted for the citizen-sponsored Initiative 65, which legalized medical marijuana, in comparison with the 26% who voted for the legislative various. Each legalized medical marijuana, although the legislative various did so with many extra restrictions than did the citizen-sponsored initiative. However primarily based on that end result, 100% of voters supported legalizing medical marijuana in some method.
However to argue that 100% of individuals voted in favor of medical marijuana additionally could be a false narrative.
What’s vital to recollect is that Mississippians are confronted with two questions when the Legislature opts to put on the poll an alternate — competing proposal — to a citizen-sponsored initiative. Some argue that the Legislature deliberately developed the convoluted, two-question course of to enact a citizen-sponsored initiative to make it harder to go any proposal opposed by the Legislature.
Underneath that convoluted course of, the primary query offers voters two choices: to assist both the citizen-sponsored initiative or the legislative various, whereas the second possibility is to oppose each.
If opposition to each receives extra votes than the assist for both the citizen-sponsored initiative or the legislative various, then that’s the ballgame. Each are defeated. However this previous November, 816,107 (68.5%) voted in favor of the citizen-sponsored initiative or the legislative various, whereas 374,931 (31.5%) voted towards each, based on official outcomes from the Mississippi Secretary of State.
Maybe it could possibly be argued, primarily based on the primary query, that just about 69% favored the legalization of medical marijuana, not 74%. Nevertheless it could possibly be argued that quantity is just not appropriate both. In spite of everything, there theoretically may have been voters who opposed each the citizen-sponsored initiative and the legislative various, however supported the idea of medical marijuana. If that was the case, and in the event that they took the query actually, they’d have voted no on the primary query.
And by the way, to additional complicate an advanced course of, individuals who vote towards each on the primary query can nonetheless vote for both the legislative various or the citizen-sponsored initiative on the second query.
In fact, this all got here up after the Supreme Courtroom in late Might in a landmark and controversial 6-3 resolution struck down the medical marijuana initiative permitted by voters in November and whereas doing so struck down your entire initiative course of. The courtroom dominated the initiative course of invalid as a result of language within the Structure requires signatures to put a difficulty on the poll be gathered equally from 5 congressional districts. The issue, the Courtroom dominated, is
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