OKLAHOMA CITY — Medical marijuana may be the state’s newest gateway drug — to voting.
Oklahomans for Health is spearheading a ballot drive to legalize the use of marijuana for medical purposes. The group has collected about 100,000 of the 156,000 signatures of registered voters it needs to get the issue on the ballot, according to its chairman, Chip Paul.
In the process, Paul said, the group has registered 24,000 new voters.
“It’s kind of been an ancillary effect of doing this,” he said. “It’s interesting. There’s people who have never voted before.”
About two dozen of those new voters signed up on a recent afternoon outside the Belle Isle Library in Oklahoma City. Volunteer Bonnie Gleason, 64, who was collecting signatures for the petition, watched as the new voters, many between ages 18 and 29, painstakingly filled out registration forms.
Gleason had just given the Oklahomans a civics lesson: They must be registered to vote to participate in the process and sign the petition. Most of those who registered, then signed, pledged to show up at the polls to vote — come Nov. 4, if the initiative makes it to the ballot.
The group has just under three weeks left to gather signatures.
While the petition’s outcome remains to be seen, it may be having a measurable effect on the state’s voter rolls.
More than 19,000 people have registered to vote from June 1 through July 25, said State Election Board spokesman Bryan Dean. That’s up nearly 7,000 from the same period four years ago.
The motive behind the bump is unknown. Dean could not say how many of the new registrations were for young voters, which might be one indication of the petition’s impact.
Younger voters tend to be less socially conservative than older voters, said David Glover, who runs badvoter.org, a non-partisan website that tracks Oklahomans’ voting habits to encourage more people to go to the polls. They’re more likely to register as independents or Democrats, he said.
Medical marijuana petition bringing in new voters
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