The Arkansas Supreme Court dealt a blow to advocates of abortion rights on Thursday, upholding the state's rejection of signed petitions for a ballot initiative. The move keeps the proposal from going before voters in November, per the AP.
- Current law: Arkansas bans abortion at any time during a pregnancy, unless the woman's life is endangered due to a medical emergency.
- Proposal: The proposed amendment would have prohibited laws banning abortion in the first 20 weeks of gestation and allowed the procedure later on in cases of rape, incest, threats to the woman's health or life, or if the fetus would be unlikely to survive birth. It would not have created a constitutional right to abortion.
Election officials said Arkansans for Limited Government failed to comply with state law primarily because it submitted paperwork incorrectly—including in regard to documentation that paid canvassers were given proper instruction on how to gather signatures, per the New York Times. "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" in the way the law requires, Justice Rhonda Wood wrote for the 4-3 majority. The group argued that it should have been given more time to provide any additional documents.
A dissenting justice wrote that the decision strips Arkansans' of their rights and effectively changes the state's initiative law. "Why are the respondent and the majority determined to keep this particular vote from the people?" wrote Justice Karen Baker, who is running against Wood for chief justice. Had they all been verified, the more than 101,000 signatures, submitted on the state's July 5 deadline, would have been enough to qualify for the ballot. The threshold was 90,704 signatures.
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