The Arkansas Supreme Court upholds the rejection of an abortion rights ballot initiative, preventing it from reaching voters in November. The decision highlights the challenges faced by advocacy groups in the state.
Bollywood Fever: The Arkansas Supreme Court ruled on Thursday to uphold the state’s rejection of signature petitions for an abortion rights ballot initiative, preventing the proposal from being presented to voters in November. This decision is a significant setback for organizers who had hoped to see a constitutional amendment on the ballot in the predominantly Republican state, where opposition to abortion is a key issue among top leaders.
The court’s 4-3 ruling came after election officials determined that Arkansans for Limited Government, the group behind the initiative, failed to properly submit necessary documentation related to the paid signature gatherers it had hired. The group disputed this claim, arguing that they should have been granted more time to provide any additional required documents.
“We find that the Secretary correctly refused to count the signatures collected by paid canvassers because the sponsor failed to file the paid canvasser training certification,” the court stated in its decision.

This ruling is part of the ongoing national conversation surrounding abortion rights, following the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to remove the nationwide right to abortion, which has led to a state-by-state battle over the issue. In Arkansas, abortion is currently banned at any point during pregnancy, except when the woman’s life is in danger due to a medical emergency.
The proposed amendment aimed to prohibit laws banning abortion within the first 20 weeks of gestation. It also allowed the procedure in cases of rape, incest, threats to the woman’s health or life, or if the fetus was unlikely to survive birth. However, it would not have created a constitutional right to abortion.
The measure did not receive backing from major national abortion rights groups like Planned Parenthood, partly because it still permitted abortion bans after 20 weeks—a threshold earlier than in other states where abortion remains legal.
Arkansans for Limited Government submitted over 101,000 signatures by the state’s July 5 deadline, which would have been sufficient to qualify for the ballot if all were verified. The threshold was 90,704 valid signatures from registered voters, spread across at least 50 counties. However, election officials reported that 87,675 of those signatures were collected by volunteers, with 912 signatures’ origins unclear as to whether they were gathered by paid or volunteer canvassers.
A key point of contention was whether the campaign complied with a 2013 state law requiring detailed statements identifying each paid canvasser by name and confirming they had been informed of the rules for gathering signatures. While supporters of the measure argued they had followed the law, including submitting affidavits identifying each paid gatherer, the state contended that the documentation did not meet legal requirements because it was not signed by someone from the canvassing company and was not submitted alongside the petitions.
The court’s decision underscores the stringent legal and procedural challenges faced by advocacy groups attempting to navigate the initiative process, particularly on contentious issues like abortion rights.
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