Arkansas Secretary of State Rejects Proposed Abortion Rights Amendment

By Tess Vrbin, Arkansas Attorney

Arkansas Secretary of State John Thurston has rejected the submission of more than 101,000 signatures for a proposed constitutional amendment that would create a limited right to abortion.

The group that submitted the petitions on Friday did not submit an affidavit identifying the paid canvassers by name, as required by state lawThurston wrote in a letter Wednesday to Lauren Cowles, executive director of Arkansans for Limited Government, the ballot issue committee supporting the proposed amendment.

State law also requires ballot committees to provide “a copy of the most recent edition of the Secretary of State’s Initiative and Referendum Manual to each paid canvasser” and to explain to canvassers the legal requirements for soliciting signatures before canvassing begins.

The AFLG failed to meet these requirements while sponsors of other referendum proposals did, Thurston wrote.

Failure to meet those requirements invalidates the 14,143 signatures collected by paid canvassers, reducing the total number of valid signatures from 101,525 to 87,382, Thurston wrote. The proposed constitutional amendments must collect 90,704 signatures from at least 50 counties to be eligible for the statewide ballot.

The AFLG said in a statement that its legal team was reviewing Thurston’s letter and “will have more to say shortly.”

The Arkansas Democratic Party said on X that its members “are committed to this fight for the long term.”

“We believe in health care and education that empowers every woman to determine when and if parenthood is right for her,” the party wrote.

Republican lawmakers welcomed Thurston’s rejection of the X amendment.

“Today, Arkansas’ far-left abortion advocates showed themselves to be both immoral and incompetent,” said Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders. wrote.

Attorney General Tim Griffin called the required affidavit “simple and straightforward.”

“Failure to comply with such a fundamental requirement is inexcusable: #abortion “The defenders have no one to blame but themselves,” he said. wrote.

The Arkansas Abortion Amendment The proposal would not allow government entities to “prohibit, penalize, delay or restrict abortion services within 18 weeks of conception.” The proposal would also allow abortion services in cases of rape, incest, fatal fetal abnormality or to “protect the life or physical health of the pregnant woman,” and it would nullify any “provisions of the state’s existing constitution, statutes and common law” that conflict with it.

Abortion has been illegal in Arkansas except to save the life of the pregnant person since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Roe v. Wade in 2022.

The AFLG was about 10,000 signatures short of the minimum early last week, but has made a big push to gather last-minute signatures, including on Independence Day when an email Claiming to be part of the organization caused confusion by stating that no additional signatures were required. quickly alerted supporters that the misleading email did not come from them and encouraged people to continue signing petitions.

Supporters of the Arkansas abortion amendment faced a number of challenges throughout the campaign, including a “refuse to sign” campaign encouraging voters not to sign petitions in support of the amendment. This campaign was led by the anti-abortion groups Arkansas Right to Life and the Family Council, the latter of which posted on its website a list of 79 people paid by the AFLG to collect signatures.

AFLG called the message an attempt at intimidation; the Family Council has since removed the list from the post but kept it publicly available on its political action committee website. The acquisition and publication of the list is legal under the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

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