Democracy Does Not Exist in Arkansas
By 
The Arkansas Supreme Court on Thursday upheld Secretary of State John Thurston’s decision to reject the proposed amendment to expand abortion access, ending the campaign to put the issue on the Nov. 5 ballot.
In a 4-3 decision the court sided with Thurston after he rejected signed petitions for the abortion amendment, saying the group behind the measure failed to follow a state law that requires campaigns to submit a signed statement attesting it provided the latest Secretary of State’s handbook on initiatives and referenda to its paid canvassers and had briefed them on the relevant state laws around canvassing.
Justices Rhonda Wood, Cody Hiland, Barbara Webb and Shawn Womack were in the majority. Chief Justice John Dan Kemp and justices Karen Baker and Courtney Hudson dissented.
The ruling means the amendment to overturn the state’s near-total ban on abortion won’t be on the November ballot.
Arkansans for Limited Government, the sponsor of the proposed abortion amendment, contends it turned in the signed affidavit days before the deadline, while the Secretary of State’s office said there were multiple issues with its submission that required the office to reject it.
“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,” said Wood, writing for the majority.
Arkansans for Limited Government attempted to have Arkansas join nine other states that have measures on the November ballot to either ease or protect access to abortion.
If approved by voters, the proposed amendment would have overturned the state’s near-ban on abortion, legalizing abortions up to 18 weeks after fertilization or in cases of rape, incest, fatal fetal anomaly, to protect the mother’s life or to protect the mother from physical harm. Arkansas law currently bans abortions except to save the life of the mother during a medical emergency.
“Today is a dark day in Arkansas. This morning, by a vote of 4-3, the Arkansas Supreme Court upheld Secretary Thurston’s disqualification of the Arkansas Abortion Amendment,” Arkansans for Limited Government said in a statement Thursday.
The court’s majority upheld Thurston’s decision to reject the abortion amendment’s signed petitions but would have allowed the Secretary of State’s office to count signatures collected by volunteers.
Thurston’s July 10 letter to Arkansans for Limited Government said because of issues with the group’s volunteer affidavit, he was required to reject the signed petitions outright.
The Supreme Court’s majority determined that while Arkansans for Limited Government failed to comply with state law regarding its paid canvasser statement, failing to do so doesn’t mean signatures collected by volunteers cannot be counted.
As our correspondent wanted me to mention, “Be sure to tell the world that, contrary to what most media outlets are saying, our Supreme Court basically just endorsed one set of (completely made up) petition rules for the abortion question while standing by the usual set of rules for two other petition efforts that feasibly faced the same issues—during the same year! Corruption at its most grand!”