Arkansas Election Officials Reject Petitions for Abortion Rights Ballot Measure

The secretary of state’s office rejected petitions submitted Friday by supporters of the proposal, saying the group failed to submit required disclosures about paid signature gatherers.

Organizers filed more than 101,000 signatures Friday. They needed at least 90,704 signatures from registered voters and at least 50 counties.

In his letter to organizers, Secretary of State John Thurston said that even if his office accepted signatures from volunteers, the total would come to 87,382, less than the required amount.

A spokesperson for Arkansans for Limited Government, the group behind the measure, said its legal team is reviewing the state’s letter.

The measure would have banned laws prohibiting abortion in the first 20 weeks of gestation and allowed the procedure later in pregnancy in cases of rape, incest, threats to the woman’s health or life, or if the fetus was unlikely to survive birth.

The U.S. Supreme Court struck down abortion rights nationwide in a 2022 ruling, sparking a national push for voters to decide the issue state by state. An Arkansas law banning abortion went into effect when the court issued its decision. Arkansas’ current ban only allows abortion to protect the mother’s life in a medical emergency.

The proposal was seen as a test of support for abortion rights in a Republican state where top elected officials have voiced opposition to abortion.

Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who opposed the measure, posted on the social media platform X after the vote that “today, the far-left pro-abortion group in Arkansas showed itself to be both immoral and incompetent.”

The referendum proposal did not receive support from national abortion rights groups such as Planned Parenthood because it would still have banned abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy.

The bill has faced strong opposition from abortion opponents in the state. One group, the Family Council Action Committee, has released the names of people who collected signatures for the measure and has vowed to challenge the proposed constitutional amendment in court if it comes to a vote.

Thurston’s letter cited an Arkansas law requiring campaigns to submit statements identifying paid canvassers by name and indicating that each paid canvasser had been explained the rules for collecting signatures.