The group behind the Arkansas Abortion Amendment said Wednesday night that it would fight Arkansas Secretary of State John Thurston’s surprise rejection of the proposal today, calling his reasoning “absurd and demonstrably, undeniably incorrect.”
“We will fight this ridiculous disqualification attempt with everything we have. We will not back down,” Rebecca Bobrow, a spokesperson for Arkansans for Limited Government, said in a statement.
Arkansans for Limited Government submitted boxes of petitions signed by more than 101,000 voters to Thurston’s office on July 5 — well over the 90,704 signatures needed to qualify the proposed constitutional amendment for the November ballot. If passed by voters, the measure would broadly restore abortion access in Arkansas, which has instituted a near-total ban on abortion since 2022. But on Wednesday, Thurston, a Republican, said that the group was disqualified from the ballot because it had failed to submit a piece of paperwork along with the signatures.
A state law cited by Thurston in a letter Wednesday says that groups aiming to put a proposal before voters must submit an affidavit “stating the number of petitions and the total number of signatures being filed,” along with a statement identifying any paid canvassers by name and attesting that they were notified of the state’s requirements for signature collection. The statement also must affirm that canvassers were “provided a copy of the most recent edition of the Secretary of State’s initiatives and referenda handbook.”
Thurston said Arkansans for Limited Government had not submitted such a statement, requiring him to disqualify its proposal.
Bobrow expressed outrage over Thurston’s decision, saying the group had already provided the state with a list of paid canvassers. She pointed out that the list Arkansans for Limited Government had previously given to the secretary of state was obtained under public records law “and released by our opposition in an attempt to intimidate our supporters” — a reference to the right-wing Arkansas Family Council’s publication of the names and home cities of abortion amendment canvassers last month.
“Arkansas law does not empower the Secretary of State to make an unfounded legal interpretation, which is what he did today by summarily declaring that we have not completed the steps for qualification,” she wrote. “We are owed a period to provide a hard copy of the statement, which has been emailed to their office more than a dozen times, if that is what’s needed.”
Bobrow also said the group had worked with staff from Thurston’s office “during every step of the process” about how to comply with the technicalities of the law. Those discussions continued right up until the signatures were turned in on July 5, she said.
“In fact, the Secretary of State’s office supplied us with the affidavit paperwork, which we used,” she said. “Until today, we had no reason not to trust that the paperwork they supplied us was correct and complete.”
Bobrow’s statement did not say whether the group may challenge Thurston’s decision in court. But Arkansas social media on Wednesday night was full of thoughts about whether they might have a case, should they sue.
State law allows organizers of ballot initiatives a 30-day window of time after the submission deadline, known as a “cure period,” to continue collecting signatures. That’s because some number of signatures are likely to be found invalid for one reason or another — for example, a person may not be currently registered to vote, or be registered in a different county than the one they stated on the petition. The cure period allows organizers to make up the difference as signatures are inevitably disqualified by the secretary of state’s staff, which is tasked with first counting and later verifying the names on the petitions.
To get to the cure period, though, a group must first clear the hurdle of submitting 90,704 apparently valid signatures by the initial deadline. In his letter Wednesday, Thurston said Arkansans for Limited Government hadn’t reached that threshold. The group attested that it had collected 87,382 signatures from the work of volunteers and another 14,143 by paid canvassers, he said. But Thurston suggested the missing paperwork automatically disqualified every signature collected by a paid canvasser, bringing the group a few thousand short of the required 90,704 necessary to reach the next stage.
Others disagree. Attorney Jen Standerfer, who was one of the leaders behind a separate proposed amendment to strengthen the state’s government transparency laws, said on Twitter Wednesday that the cure period should apply in the case of the abortion amendment:
Might abortion advocates still have some chance of reversing Thurston’s decision, or is it over? As of Wednesday night, it’s impossible to say. Though the right to directly place measures on the ballot is conferred by the Arkansas Constitution, the laws that govern the process are convoluted and ever-changing. Lawyers for Arkansans for Limited Government are surely weighing their options now, including the likelihood of success before a conservative state Supreme Court that tends to side with Republicans.
Republican politicians, at least, have already declared victory. “Today the far left pro-abortion crowd in Arkansas showed they are both immoral and incompetent,” Gov. Sarah Sanders gloated on Twitter. Attorney General Tim Griffin said the abortion amendment organizers “have no one to blame but themselves” for the disqualification.
“As I have long said, changing the Arkansas Constitution involves a rigorous process, as it should, and it requires sponsors to adhere to all applicable laws and rules. In this instance, the sponsors failed to follow the law, specifically a simple and straightforward affidavit requirement that other ballot committees followed. Failure to follow such a basic requirement is inexcusable,” Griffin wrote.
Here’s the full statement from Bobrow, the Arkansas for Limited Government representative:
Arkansans for Limited Government is alarmed and outraged by Secretary Thurston’s attempt to disqualify the Arkansas Abortion Amendment from November’s ballot.
We worked with the Secretary of State’s office during every step of the process to ensure that we followed all rules and regulations. At multiple junctures — including on July 5 inside of the Capitol Building — we discussed signature submission requirements with the Secretary of State’s staff. In fact, the Secretary of State’s office supplied us with the affidavit paperwork, which we used. Until today, we had no reason not to trust that the paperwork they supplied us was correct and complete.
The Secretary of State, and the public, knows that we provided the state with a list of our paid canvassers and all of the required information associated with their employment. They know this because the list we provided to the Secretary of State was FOIA’d and released by our opposition in an attempt to intimidate our supporters. Asserting now that we didn’t provide required documentation regarding paid canvassers is absurd and demonstrably, undeniably incorrect.
Arkansas law does not empower the Secretary of State to make an unfounded legal interpretation, which is what he did today by summarily declaring that we have not completed the steps for qualification. We are owed a period to provide a hard copy of the statement, which has been emailed to their office more than a dozen times, if that is what’s needed.
More than 101,000 Arkansans participated in this heroic act of direct democracy and stood up to loudly proclaim their support for access to healthcare. They deserve better than a state government that seeks to silence them.
We will fight this ridiculous disqualification attempt with everything we have. We will not back down.