By Romy Ellenbogen, Tampa Bay Times

TALLAHASSEE — The Florida group pushing to legalize recreational marijuana is accusing the state of meddling with its ability to get the issue in front of voters.

Smart & Safe Florida, a political committee trying to again put a recreational marijuana constitutional amendment on the ballot, filed a lawsuit against Secretary of State Cord Byrd last week, accusing him of trying to invalidate about 200,000 petitions without any basis in law.

Those petitions make up about one-third of the verified signatures the campaign has collected so far. To get its proposal in front of voters, Smart & Safe needs about 880,000 valid petitions by Feb. 1.

At issue are thousands of petitions the campaign sent directly to voters early this year . The mailers includ

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