Arkansas Supreme Court orders initial count of Arkansas abortion amendment signatures

Little Rock, Arkansas – John Thurston, the secretary of state for Arkansas, declared that he will abide by the Supreme Court’s ruling from Tuesday night, which directed an instantaneous count of the signatures obtained to put a proposed abortion amendment on the ballot in November.

However, the proposal’s future is far from certain.

The proposed amendment would forbid the state from limiting access to abortions until eighteen weeks following conception. It would also permit abortions beyond eighteen weeks in cases of rape, incest, fatal fetal abnormalities, or in need to preserve the mother’s life.

“I find it interesting that the backers of the other petition measures that are vying for the ballot did do all of their paperwork properly on their paid canvassers, but this abortion group did not. Apparently, the rules were clear enough to other participants in this but for whatever reason this group just failed to do so,” Jerry Cox, Executive Director of Family Council Action Committee said.

According to Cox, there isn’t much that Arkansans for Limited Government could do if they don’t get the necessary amount of signatures.

“If they fall short on this point, which is called the initial count, there is very little path forward for them from there because the law is so clear in saying if you fail the initial count, if you do not get the minimum number required by law then you do not get a cure period and your measure is basically dead,” Cox said.

According to Rebecca Bobrow, Director of Strategy at Arkansans for Limited Government, the organization is still going strong because the Supreme Court has mandated that the Secretary of State conduct a preliminary count of the signatures obtained by AFLG’s volunteer canvassers on the abortion ballot initiative by Monday at the latest.

“The Supreme Court ruled in AFLG’s favor on a few issues and they did not rule in the Secretary of State’s favor on any issues,” Bobrow said.

Bobrow declared this to be a democratic victory.

“A win for the 800 volunteers who were out across the state collecting signatures and a win for the 101,000 Arkansas voters who signed their name to a petition,’ Bobrow said.

Regarding whether this initiative will appear on the ballots, there is still some legal doubt, according to Dr. Baily Fairbanks, UCA’s assistant professor and pre-law advisor.

“This is only partially settled. Of course, we know that they are going to do the signature count for the volunteer signatures but there is still the debate of course with the canvassing signatures from the paid canvassers that are a big question and of course just generally the filing issues with the paperwork,” Fairbanks said.

As you may recall, the Secretary of State’s office rejected the Arkansas abortion amendment two weeks ago, citing the organization’s inability to properly identify or demonstrate that its hired canvassers had received the necessary training.

Thurston added that the required documentation was not submitted with the signatures and calculated that there were only about 87,000 signatures total, meaning AFLG would need just over 3,000 signatures to be included on the ballot.

The Secretary of State’s Office is now required by the Supreme Court to obtain a certain quantity of signatures.

“Once that is done, we will know if they reach the threshold of 90,704 which is the minimum number that they need in order to move forward in the verification process,” Cox said.