Florida’s Attorney General James Uthmeier has announced plans to issue subpoenas to the political committee Smart & Safe Florida, which is pushing to put recreational marijuana on the 2026 ballot. The move is part of an investigation into election fraud, specifically fraudulent petitions. In order to get a proposed amendment on the ballot, a group must collect nearly 880,000 valid petitions from state voters.
The investigation is focused on the political committee’s petition collection process, and Uthmeier’s office is seeking to determine whether criminal liability extends beyond individual petition collectors to the organization as a whole. This is a departure from previous fraud investigations, which typically targeted individual petition collectors.
Uthmeier and Governor Ron DeSantis have both expressed opposition to recreational marijuana. In 2024, Uthmeier helped lead an effort against a similar constitutional amendment sponsored by Smart & Safe Florida, which ultimately fell short of receiving the required 60% voter approval to pass.
In recent months, nine petition circulators have been arrested or had warrants issued, with six other cases pending. The Smart & Safe Florida campaign has reported any discrepancies in petitions to the secretary of state and has separated suspicious petitions before submitting them to county elections supervisors.
The Attorney General’s Office has cited documents provided by the campaign in a lawsuit last year that show discussion of “crimes and bad acts.” However, a spokesperson for the campaign has said that the texts in question show team members rooting out fraud.
The campaign has until February 1 to collect the required number of valid petitions to get its proposed amendment on the ballot. The state’s Division of Elections has been pushing county elections officials to invalidate tens of thousands of already-verified petitions, which has been challenged by the marijuana group in court.
The investigation is ongoing, and the Attorney General’s Office has asked the state law enforcement department to open fraud investigations into a group of petition circulators and to prioritize those cases. The Smart & Safe Florida campaign has said that it will continue to work with the state to ensure anyone committing fraud is terminated, and has also called for the Attorney General to apply the same level of scrutiny to the $10 million Hope Florida scandal, which is also being investigated by the State Attorney.
