LINCOLN, Neb. (KOLN) – Nebraska’s Medical Marijuana petition is currently not having workers or volunteers out getting petitions signed due to COVID-19. Sen. Anna Wishart is the main sponsor for the petition who’s been getting signatures since February.

“We have asked both of those initiatives,” Sen. Wishart said, “To stop while we’re in the social distancing health care directives”. Wishart said the initiative has an early enough start on getting signatures that it can make it to this November’s ballot.

“We’ve run the numbers,” Wishart said, “We have the team to do it. So we feel confident.” While her petition isn’t getting signatures right now, the state said it isn’t giving petitions more time to collect signatures.

“These petitions have been available for petitioning,” Nebraska Secretary of State Bob Evnen said, “Has been open for quite some time. Way before this being a problem.”

This means petitions will need at least 130,000 signatures by July 2. They’ll also need to collect signatures from people in each district of Nebraska. “The decision is were going to follow those statutory deadlines.” Nebraska Secretary of State Evnen said, “I don’t know what we would do if we didn’t.”

Sen. Wishart is asking for an alternative to continue getting signatures by allowing for electronic signatures during the pandemic. Nebraska Secretary of State Evnen said this isn’t an option and all of them will need to be in-person signatures.

Other petitions voters may see on November’s ballot is sports gambling, payday lending, and property tax relief.