Florida to subpoena recreational marijuana campaign about petition fraud

Romy Ellenbogen, Tampa Bay Times on Jan 20, 2026

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TALLAHASSEE — Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier announced plans Tuesday to subpoena the group pushing to get recreational marijuana on the 2026 ballot, saying the subpoenas were part of an “escalation” of the state’s investigation into election fraud.

The probe focuses on fraudulent petitions. In order for a proposed amendment to get on the ballot, a group must collect nearly 880,000 valid petitions from state voters.

In past fraud investigations, the state has typically gone after only individual petition collectors.

But Uthmeier’s office on Tuesday said it plans to issue subpoenas for the political committee Smart & Safe Florida to “determine whether criminal liability extends beyond individual circulators and into broader organizational conduct.”

Both Uthmeier and Gov. Ron DeSantis fiercely oppose recreational marijuana. In 2024, Uthmeier, who was then DeSantis’ chief of staff, helped lead an effort against a similar constitutional amendment sponsored by Smart & Safe Florida. The 2024 amendment fell short of receiving the required 60% voter approval to pass.

“Florida’s Constitution is not for sale, and we will not allow a mega marijuana corporation to hijack our state’s governing document,” Uthmeier said in a news release Tuesday.

In the past few months, nine petition circulators have been arrested or had warrants issued, with six other cases pending, according to the Attorney General’s Office.

A spokesperson for the Smart & Safe Florida campaign said that per Florida law, “each and every time” the campaign found any discrepancy in petitions, it reported it to the secretary of state and also separated suspicious petitions before submitting them to county elections supervisors.

“In short, it appears the Attorney General is taking issue with the fact that we explicitly follow the law,” a campaign spokesperson said in a statement.

In a Tuesday letter to Florida Department of Law Enforcement agents outlining the attorney general’s investigation, statewide prosecutor Brad McVay cited documents the campaign provided in a lawsuit last year that McVay said showed discussion of “crimes and bad acts.”

McVay said the agency didn’t know whether or not the marijuana campaign had notified Florida elections officials, and said it did not appear they were notifying law enforcement.

He asked the state law enforcement department to open fraud investigations into a group of petition circulators and to prioritize those cases. McVay highlighted a batch of about 7,000 petitions that were deemed valid that were collected by circulators suspected of fraud.

A spokesperson for the marijuana campaign said the texts McVay referred to show team members rooting out fraud.

Smart & Safe Florida has until Feb. 1 to collect the required number of valid petitions to get a shot at its proposed amendment appearing in front of voters.

In recent months, the state’s Division of Elections has been pushing county elections officials to invalidate tens of thousands of already-verified petitions, directives that have been challenged by the marijuana group in court.

Last week, some elections supervisors were notified that the state’s Office of Election Crimes and Security would be coming in person to audit petitions.

In 2024, Uthmeier was the chairperson of the political committee Keep Florida Clean, a group set up to fight against the 2024 marijuana proposal.

That year, the DeSantis administration diverted $10 million in money from a state Medicaid settlement to the state-run Hope Florida Foundation. The foundation passed the money along to two nonprofits that later sent millions to the Uthmeier-controlled committee.

That redirection of Medicaid money is the subject of a grand jury probe.

A spokesperson for Smart & Safe Florida said the group would continue to work with the state to ensure anyone committing fraud is terminated. They said the group hopes that “the Attorney General applies the same vigor to the $10 million Hope Florida scandal also being investigated by the State Attorney.”