An abortion advocacy group was partially successful in their legal challenge to a decision made by Secretary of State John Thurston.
The group Arkansans For Limited Government collected over 101,000 signatures to put an amendment on the November ballot to legalize abortion in Arkansas. If approved by voters, the amendment would legalize the procedure up to the 18th week of pregnancy.
Over 90,000 signatures were needed to place the proposal on the ballot. About 14,000 signatures were collected using paid canvassers.
Arkansas has strict rules about the use of paid canvassers; there are specific documents that must be turned in along with the boxes of signatures. Secretary of State John Thurston said AFLG did not turn in the right paperwork and threw out the paid signatures, putting the group below the signature threshold.
Last week, AFLG appealed Thurston's decision to the Arkansas Supreme Court. On Tuesday night, the court issued an order requiring Thurston to count signatures gathered by volunteers. It's unclear if the secretary of state's office also has to count signatures gathered by paid canvassers.
Arkansas has laws allowing for extra signature collection time if at least 75% of the needed signatures turned in meet requirements. This 30-day window is called a “cure period.” Many members of AFLG are still working to collect additional signatures in case they are granted a cure period.
Previously, Thurston had provided several explanations as to why the signatures were thrown out. First, he said the group was missing a list of paid canvassers and documents showing that they had read the handbook. A FOIA request from the Arkansas Times showed that documents matching this description had been turned in on the day the signatures were due.
Thurston later said the group did not have a signed affidavit written by a sponsor of the group. But a signed affidavit was notarized by the secretary of state's office on the day the signatures were due.
AFLG filed the lawsuit against Thurston on July 16. Attorney General Tim Griffin is representing Thurston in the lawsuit. They were adamant that, as a group, they followed all the rules.
“The Secretary has failed his duty to ‘perform an initial count of the signatures,’” the suit said. “Because he is, at minimum, required to perform an initial count of all signatures before making a sufficiency determination, his sufficiency determination is incorrect.”
The group asked for signature counting to continue despite Thurston’s ruling. Meanwhile, lawyers for the attorney general moved to have the suit thrown out, arguing AFLG did not follow the rules.
“AFLG seeks a pass,” the response said.
Late Tuesday evening, the Arkansas Supreme Court sided with AFLG. In a short order, the justices said that the signatures collected by non-paid canvassers must be counted. They did not specify what Thurston should do about the 14,000 signatures collected by paid canvassers. It's unclear whether the order also gave the group a provisional 30-day cure period. The order was agreed to by Chief Justice John Dan Kemp, Associate Justices Courtney Hudson and Karen Baker.
"Today, the will of the people won,” AFLG spokesperson Rebecca Bobrow said in a statement. “We are heartened by this outcome, which honors the constitutional rights of Arkansans to participate in direct democracy, the voices of 101,000 Arkansas voters who signed the petition.”
Attorney General Tim Griffin said in a statement that he is also content with the ruling.
“AFLG failed to meet all legal requirements to have the signatures collected by paid canvassers counted, a failure for which they only have themselves to blame.”
The secretary of State's office said they have seen the order "and will comply with that directive."
Correction: a previous version of this story misstated the defendants in the suit.
