A challenge to a medical marijuana initiative recently approved to be included on the Nov. 3 ballot has been submitted to the Nebraska Supreme Court.

On Friday, Lancaster County Sheriff Terry Wagner filed a challenge to Secretary of State Bob Evnen’s ruling that the initiative qualified to be on the ballot.

Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana, the group supporting legalized medical cannabis, collected well over the required 122,275 valid signatures needed to put the issue on the ballot, but on Wednesday, Mark Fahleson, the lawyer representing Wagner and a former chairman of the state Republican Party, sought to block the issue from the ballot.

In a letter, lawyers for the pro-medical marijuana group called Fahleson’s challenge “a last-minute attempt to derail the precious right of the people” to vote on voter-supported initiatives.

The case must be decided by Sept. 11, the deadline to certify the ballot for the general election.Our best staff photos of August 2020