Arkansas abortion amendment backers decry Secretary of State John Thurston
Arkansans for Limited Government, a group trying to expand abortion access in Arkansas, said the secretary of state acted "unlawfully" earlier this week when he rejected the signatures they submitted for a November ballot measure.
Republican Secretary of State John Thurston on Wednesday told organizers did not include two statements required by law listing paid canvassers and affirming they were told about the rules for gathering signatures. In a letter to Arkansans for Limited Government, Thurston said the missing documents "require(s) me to reject your submission outright."
"Contrary to your claim, AFLG met the requirements," Lauren Cowles, executive director of Arkansans for Limited Government, wrote in a letter to Thurston that was released Thursday.
Arkansans for Limited Government, which submitted 101,525 signatures to qualify its abortion measure for the November ballot, said the committee had submitted the documentation for paid canvassers in late June and again on July 5 with the signatures.
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"These materials had already been provided to you, and were only provided again in an abundance of caution, even against the insistence of your staff that some of this information was not required," Cowles said.
Cowles argues the secretary of state is legally obligated to count and verify the submitted signatures.
The Arkansas Secretary of State's office could not be reached for comment.
The threshold to qualify was 90,704 signatures. Of the total submitted, 14,135 had been collected by paid canvassers rather than volunteers.
"There is nothing new about this," said Howard W. Brill, a University of Arkansas law professor and former chief justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court.
Voter-driven ballot initiates in Arkansas frequently face challenges from politicians, Brill said.
The extra requirements for paid canvassers were added in 2013, soon after Republicans took control of the state House for the first time in decades.
"I've never seen an effort as organized and disciplined as this one," said Janine Parry, an expert on direct democracy at the University of Arkansas. "They prepared for, it looked like, pretty much every contingency."
Going forward, she said, "I think it's going to be a bitter, bitter throwdown, probably for a month."
Bettina Brownstein, an Arkansas attorney and supporter of the amendment, said that ultimately, the state's Supreme Court will decide whether the abortion ballot measure appears on the November ballot.
"I'm very skeptical about this court defying the administration, and the administration is very much against this," she said.