Arkansas Supreme Court keeps abortion off November ballots

The state’s high court on Thursday ruled that Arkansas Secretary of State John Thurston followed the law while discarding signatures from paid canvassers who were improperly credentialed. The pro-abortion group Arkansans for Limited Government failed to provide necessary information about the canvassers it hired and paid, Thurston said. As a result, he couldn’t count the signatures they collected.

Thurston’s decision not to count signatures from the paid canvassers meant aproposed ballot measure to enshrine a legal right to abortion in the state’s constitution would not be decided in November. The amendment would have prevented the state from protecting unborn babies before they turned 18 weeks old. It would permit women to abort their unborn babies if a physician determined the pregnancy posed a risk to their health.

How did this get to the state Supreme Court? Arkansans for Limited Government sued Thurston, alleging it did provide the required documentation for its paid canvassers and that he should’ve counted those signatures. The group’s lawyers then filed a motion to expedite its case. But Arkansas’ Attorney General Tim Griffin then filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit altogether. Thurston followed the law in rejecting the paid canvassers’ signatures, Griffin said.

The Arkansas Supreme Court ordered Thurston to conduct an initial count of the paid canvassers’ collected signatures. However, the court reserved the right to issue later decisions on the matter. On Thursday, it formally decided that Thurston followed the law and rejected Arkansans for Limited Government’s lawsuit.

Dig deeper: Read Lauren Canterberry’s report in The Sift diving into the details of the dispute between Thurston’s office and the pro-abortion advocates.