The For AR Kids ballot question committee will have more than 1,000 volunteers at more than 50 events across the state this week collecting signatures. The group is racing to meet the signature threshold to make the ballot in November by the July 5 deadline.
“We’re in striking range,” Bill Kopsky, the group’s treasurer, said in a press conference today. “If we close in these last few days the way that other campaigns have closed, we should be in good shape.”
The ambitious ballot initiative seeks to add the Educational Rights Amendment to the state constitution. It would mandate additional educational services — such as pre-K and stronger services for students with disabilities — and hold private schools that accept public funding through vouchers to the same standards as those for public schools.
To make it onto the 2024 ballot, supporters must collect at least 90,704 signatures from at least 50 counties. (Arkansas has 75 counties total.) Signatures are due by 5 p.m. Friday.
Organizers said they have cleared the minimum threshold in 40 counties; another 4 counties have reportedly cleared but the group is waiting for the signatures to come back from the field. Multiple other counties only need a handful more. “We have 10 or 11 counties within striking range,” organizer Steve Grappe said. “Over the next 24 to 48 hours, we’re gonna have our 50 counties. … We think we’ve got that in the bag.”
The group always thought the 50-county requirement would be the biggest hurdle, Grappe said. “Now we can really focus on driving the [total] number up. We still have a large amount of signatures to get.”
The group can confidently report that they have collected roughly 60,000 signatures, Grappe said. That includes both signatures in hand that are currently being processed (checking for errors and sorting by county) by For AR Kids, plus signatures that have been counted in the field but not yet delivered to headquarters. Meanwhile, there are thousands more that have been collected in the field but not yet counted — optimistically, potentially up to half of the remainder needed to meet the total threshold, Grappe said.
Either way, the group needs thousands more signatures in the next few days. These types of campaigns typically put up numbers like that in the final days, organizers said, making their progress typical for campaigns like this at this stage in the process.
If the group makes the thresholds by the deadline, the Secretary of State’s office will then review them to see if they are facially valid — a quick check to make sure the basic rules were followed (if they turn in fewer than 90,704, they are immediately declared invalid and the state doesn’t bother proceeding to the quick check). If 75% of the total 90,704 required (or 68,028) pass this initial test, the group will be allowed one month to collect additional signatures. That’s known as the “cure period.” This allows the group to attempt to collect backup signatures to add to the pile because some will inevitable be tossed out when the state does its more thorough check of the signatures (verifying addresses, etc.)
Kopsky said For AR Kids faces greater challenges than the typical ballot initiative effort because they are an all-volunteer group on a shoestring budget and they’re facing a historically well-funded opposition effort before the measure has even made the ballot.
“We’re the least funded of all the [ballot initiative] campaigns and we’ve had the most well-funded opposition,” Kopsky said. “Those things play a huge factor. Our opposition has spread lies, including in [the Democrat-Gazette] this weekend. We’ve never seen this level of a dishonest campaign targeting just a signature drive.”
Arkansans for Students and Educators, a group opposing the measure, is swimming in cash – $986,000 in total donations – thanks to the largesse of Jim Walton, rightwing TikTok investor Jeff Yass and other big-money donors. Strong Arkansas, a separate ballot question committee, has raised $375,000 to fight the education amendment and other measures. For AR Kids has raised just $8,217.53.
“We are grassroots,” said organizer Kymara Seals. “This is what we do. We don’t have millionaire donors, we don’t have billionaire donors. We have people power.”
“We need help in these final few days,” Kopsky said. “We need a big turnout. It’s been done before, so we feel optimistic. But we do need folks to turn out and feel the urgency of the moment. Our lawmakers have failed our kids for generations. We’re not giving Arkansas kids an opportunity for quality education. Our amendment changes that. This is an opportunity to put it before voters so voters can do the right thing and take care of the business that our lawmakers have failed to take care of.”
From their press release, here’s the group’s summary of the amendment:
The Arkansas Educational Rights Amendment would amend the education article of the Arkansas Constitution to:
- Guarantee access to voluntary universal access to pre-K for 3- and 4-year olds, afterschool & summer programming, quality special education, and wrap-around services for children within 200% of the Federal Poverty Line;
- Establish the minimum quality standards ordered by the Arkansas Supreme Court in 2002 in its Lakeview decision; and
- Require any school receiving any amount of public funds to follow the same standards that traditional public schools are required to follow.