(The Center Square) – Arkansans for Limited Government are challenging Secretary of State John Thurston’s decision to dismiss their petition for a ballot question on abortion and will fight the decision.
Thurston said Tuesday the group failed to identify paid canvassers by name or provide a signed statement that a copy of the secretary of state’s handbook for canvassers was provided. He also discounted more than 14,000 signatures, leaving the group 3,322 short of the 90,704 valid signatures needed to appear on the November ballot.
But that is not the case, the group said.
“Your letter fails to specify in what manner AFLG failed to comply with the plain language of the statute, leaving AFLG to guess at your reasoning,” the group said in a letter to Thurston.
The secretary of state also erred by not counting all the signatures, AFLG said.
“Your July 10 letter makes clear that you relied upon AFLG’s representation regarding the total number of signatures collected, not your own,” the group said. “AFLG’s conservative, internal signature count has no bearing on your independent duty as the official charged with verifying signatures to perform an initial count of all signatures.”
After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Roe v. Wade decision in 2022, then Gov. Asa Hutchinson and then-Attorney General Leslie Rutledge banned abortion except in cases where the mother’s life is in danger.
The ballot amendment would have allowed abortion up to 18 weeks of pregnancy and prevented the state from banning abortion in cases of rape, incest, the mother’s health or fatal fetal anomaly.