Arkansas Supreme Court rejects bid to put abortion initiative on the ballot

An abortion rights amendment will not be on the ballot in Arkansas this fall, after the state Supreme Court ruled in favor of state officials in deciding organizers failed to submit the required paperwork, making the measure ineligible. 

The 4-3 ruling Thursday means a long-shot bid by Arkansans for Limited Government (AFLG) to put abortion on the ballot in the ruby-red state will fall short.  

The initiative would have protected abortion through the first 18 weeks of pregnancy, as well as in instances of rape, incest, threats to the woman’s health or life, or if the fetus would be unlikely to survive birth. 

Abortion is banned in Arkansas at any stage of pregnancy, with an exception for a medical emergency only. Unlike other state initiatives, the amendment would not have created a constitutional right to abortion.

The measure did not go as far as in other states because organizers wanted to appeal to the more conservative voters in Arkansas. But as a result, leading national groups that back other measures did not support Arkansas’s initiative. 

Organizers last month announced they had submitted more than 101,000 signatures in favor of the ballot initiative, well above the 90,704 needed for placing the amendment to the state constitution on the ballot. 

But Secretary of State John Thurston (R) subsequently disqualified the signatures over what he said was essentially a paperwork error related to paid canvassers. Thurston said the group did not submit a sworn statement confirming that the paid canvassers had been instructed on how to collect signatures. 

AFLG filed a lawsuit asking the state Supreme Court to vacate the disqualification. 

“We find that the Secretary correctly refused to count the signatures collected by paid canvassers because the sponsor failed to file the paid canvasser training certification,” the court said. 

As a result, the court found the initiative collected only 87,675 signatures, which was not enough for the measure to move forward.   

In a statement, AFLG decried the ruling, saying the majority seemed determined to keep the initiative from being put to voters.  

“More than 102,000 Arkansas voters exercised their constitutionally protected right to engage in direct democracy by signing the petition to get the Arkansas Abortion Amendment on the ballot. The Court’s majority ratifies Secretary Thurston’s decision to silence those voices,” Rebecca Bobrow, AFLG's director of strategy, said in a statement. 

“Despite this infuriating result, our fight isn’t over. We can’t — and won’t — rest until Arkansas women have access to safe, standard health care and the autonomy to make decisions about their bodies free from governmental interference.”