LITTLE ROCK, Ark. Arkansas election officials on Wednesday rejected petitions filed for a electoral measure for the right to abortion that organizers hoped to present to voters this fall in a predominantly Republican state.
The Secretary of State’s office rejected petitions filed Friday by supporters of the proposal, saying the group did not provide required statements regarding paid signature gatherers.
Organizers on Friday submitted more than 101,000 signatures. They needed at least 90,704 signatures from registered voters and from a minimum of 50 counties.
In his letter to organizers, Secretary of State John Thurston said that even if his office accepted the signatures he determined came from volunteers, the total would amount to 87,382, below the amount required.
A spokesperson for Arkansans for Limited Government, the group behind the measure, said its legal team was reviewing the state’s letter.
The measure would have barred laws that prohibit abortion in the first 20 weeks of pregnancy and allowed the procedure later in pregnancy in cases of rape, incest, threats to the woman’s health or life, or if the fetus was unlikely to survive birth.
The US Supreme Court removed the national right to abortion with a 2022 decision, which triggered a national push for voters to decide the matter state by state. An Arkansas law banning abortion took effect when the court issued its ruling. Arkansas’ current ban allows abortion only to protect the life of the mother in a medical emergency.
The proposal was seen as a test of support for abortion rights in a Republican state where senior elected officials have praised their opposition to abortion.
Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who opposed the measure, posted on Social Platform X after the rejection that “today the far-left pro-abortion mob in Arkansas showed they are both immoral and incompetent.”
The ballot proposal lacked support from national abortion advocacy groups such as Planned Parenthood because it would still have allowed abortions to be banned after 20 weeks of pregnancy.
It faced strong opposition from abortion opponents in the state. One of the groups, the Family Council Action Committee, published the names of people who collected signatures for the measure and promised to challenge the proposed constitutional change in court if it passed.
Thurston’s letter cited an Arkansas law that requires campaigns to submit statements identifying paid canvassers by name and indicating that each paid canvasser was given an explanation of the rules for collecting signatures.
