SARASOTA, Fla. (SNN TV) — In 11 months, Florida voters may have a chance to enshrine recreational marijuana legalization and abortion rights protections into the state’s constitution. But if the election were held today, they’d both pass according to a poll from the University of North Florida.
Previous polling by Public Opinion Research Lab at UNF usually asked generic questions about marijuana legalization and abortion restrictions in previous polling.
“This time, we have amendment language that we used in our question,” said Dr. Michael Binder, the faculty director at UNF’s Public Opinion Research Lab.
When asked about legalizing recreational marijuana, 67% of those surveyed said they would vote yes. On banning abortion restrictions before viability or when necessary to protect a patient’s health, 62% said they’d vote yes.
“And those are important numbers because in Florida, you need to get to 60% plus-one for a ballot measure to become the law of the land,” Binder explained.
The support was high among all groups. On the marijuana amendment, 78% of Democrats said they would vote yes, along with 69% who had no party affiliation — NPAs — and even 55% of Republicans. On protecting abortion rights, 77% of Democrats, 58% of NPAs, and 53% of Republicans would vote yes.
In order to get on the ballot, the Florida Supreme Court has to say yes. And on the marijuana issue, supporters have a lot going for them because they’ve been through this before.
“Just a couple years ago, the Supreme Court knocked down and prevented that measure from getting on the ballot,” said Binder. “So [marijuana legalization supporters] went back, they changed the language following what the Court suggested.”
Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody is arguing the marijuana amendment is misleading and shouldn’t be on the ballot in 2024. But this time, she received notable pushback from someone who previously agreed with her position.
“Ears perked up a little bit because it was the Chief Justice who authored that previous opinion that [now] asked questions that were skeptical of the state’s claim that it was misleading,” Binder said.
We’ll have to wait to see if the Chief Justice’s oral questions match the final written ruling.
On abortion, Moody is making the same argument that the amendment is misleading.
“It’s unclear how strong that claim is because the language that’s been used in that ballot summary is consistent with language around this issue, particularly from the [Florida] Supreme Court for the last 50 years,” said Binder.
If the amendments get on the ballot, there could be changes in the polling heading closer to November 2024.
“In all these polls, there’s always like 5 to10% of people who don’t know or are unsure or maybe don’t want to tell you how they feel about these issues,” explained Binder. “On election day, it’s either a yes or no.”
The marijuana amendment already has the number of signatures needed to get onto the 2024 ballot in Florida. The abortion amendment has close to 70% of the necessary signatures.