Casinos, Marijuana & (Of Course) Abortion?
Referendum drive to protect FOIA fails UPDATED: So did "abortion as a right"
This post UPDATED 7/10/24: The Arkansas Secretary of State has found that some of the petitions submitted for “abortion as a right” by Arkansans for Limited Government have not met the statutory requirements for the signature gatherers and has thrown out some 14,000 signatures. This referendum will not appear on the November ballot.
… Only three citizen initiatives could likely be on your November ballot after reams and reams of state-wide voter petitions were submitted by Friday’s deadline to the Secretary of State’s office for verification.
Gaining the most signatures — with well above the minimum thresholds needed — were
Local Voters in Charge, whose petitions with 162,181 signatures will ask voters to change the Arkansas Constitution to add an election requirement for any new casino gaming in Pope County
Arkansans for Patient Access, with 114,402 signatures submitted, will ask voters to approve expanded access to medical marijuana
the (misleadingly named!) Arkansans for Limited Government group turned in 101,525 signatures to add abortion as a right into the Arkansas Constitution.
The Secretary of State’s office now begins to first review the petition pages for errors and then perform the official voter signature count that verifies ballot access. (State-wide ballots must be distributed to County Clerks by August 22.)
For a constitutional amendment, signatures are required from at least 10% of the total number of gubernatorial votes from the last election — statewide 90,704 are needed — and a certain percentage of all those signatures must be from at least 50 different counties. The statewide total needed for a new state law is 72,563.
Failed:
Arkansas Citizens for Transparency admitted its effort to put our gold-standard FOI Act into the state Constitution and implement details in new state law fell short of the minimum signature requirements, but the group was the only one to decline to release the number of signatures it gathered.
Another high-profile issue — the effort to undermine the LEARNS Act with the “Educational Rights Amendment” — also failed when For AR Kids turned in only 69,968 signatures.
Also, the Arkansas Period Poverty Project’s push to eliminate sales tax on feminine hygiene products and diapers didn’t make it, with only 43,831 signatures submitted.