Arkansas Election Officials Disqualify Proposed Abortion Amendment

WASHINGTON - JANUARY 24: Pro-life activist Jessica Meunier (R) of Fitchburg, MA, and pro-a
Alex Wong/Getty Images
Katherine Hamilton

Arkansas Secretary of State John Thurston rejected a proposed constitutional amendment on Wednesday that would have enshrined the right to abortion in the state constitution.

Thurston sent a rejection letter to the group spearheading the measure, Arkansans for Limited Government, telling activists that they did not follow state law when they failed to submit a statement identifying all paid canvassers by name and failed to provide a statement confirming they had provided each canvassers with proper training about state law before allowing them to collect signatures.  

“In McDaniel v. Spencer in 2015, the Arkansas Supreme Court expressly found this requirement to be constitutional. You did not submit any statements meeting this requirement. By contrast, other sponsors of initiative petitions complied with this requirement. Therefore, I must reject your submission,” Thurston wrote. 

Thurston added that even if his office had accepted the signatures, the total would amount to 87,382 — below the required 90,704 signatures. Activists claimed on Friday that they had submitted 101,255 signatures. 

He wrote: 

Even if your failure to comply with [the law] did not require me to reject your submission outright, it would certainly mean that signatures gathered by paid canvassers in your submission could not be counted for any reason. You submitted an affidavit attesting that the total number of signatures submitted was 101,255. As a courtesy to you, I instructed my office to determine the initial count of signatures gathered by paid canvassers in your putative submission. That number was 14,143. After removing those signatures, and assuming your attestation as valid, 87,382 volunteer signatures remain — 3,322 signatures less than the required 90,704. 

Therefore, even if I could accept your submission, I would be forced to find that your petition is insufficient on its face for failure to obtain the required 90,704 signatures. 

Arizona abortion-rights supporters deliver over 800,000 petition signatures to the capitol to get abortion rights on the November general election ballot Wednesday, July 3, 2024, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

Rebecca Bobrow, director of strategy for Arkansans for Limited Government, told Axios: “Our legal team is reviewing the letter, and we will have more to say shortly.”

The Arkansas abortion measure would not allow the state government to “prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion services within 18 weeks of fertilization, which equates to approximately 20 weeks since the first day of the pregnant female’s last menstrual period.”

The amendment would also allow abortions in cases of rape, incest, a fatal fetal anomaly, or “to protect a pregnant female’s life or to protect a pregnant female from a physical disorder, physical illness, or physical injury.”

Abortion is currently outlawed in Arkansas except to save the life of a pregnant woman in a medical emergency.

Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R) celebrated the rejection of the abortion measure in a post to X on Wednesday.

“Today the far left pro-abortion crowd in Arkansas showed they are both immoral and incompetent,” the governor wrote.

President of Students for Life Kristan Hawkins also welcomed the news, calling the effort a “manipulative campaign to force abortion into the state’s constitution.”

“The Democratic Party’s Get-Out-The-Vote plan in Arkansas fails as pro-abortion activists fall short in their signature collection,” Hawkins said in a post to X. “Kudos to Arkansas Secretary of State John Thurston for his skills in math and in law. In rejecting signatures from unverified, paid signature collectors, and in noting what the law requires, he rejects this manipulative campaign to force abortion into the state’s constitution.”

Left-wing activists in at least 11 states have launched efforts to place abortion on the ballot in November — and proposed constitutional amendments have officially qualified for the ballots in six of those states, including Colorado, South Dakota, Florida, Maryland, Nevada, and New York. Activists in Nebraska and Arizona also submitted signatures last week for abortion measures in their states. Legal challenges loom for several of the measures. 

Katherine Hamilton is a political reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on X @thekat_hamilton.

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