“Our compliance with the law is clear and well-documented,” Lauren Cowles, executive director of Arkansans for Limited Government, said in a statement. “The secretary of state’s refusal to count valid signatures is an affront to democracy and an attempt to undermine the will of the people.” Read more at The Guardian
Arkansans for Limited Government announced Friday that it collected the signatures of more than 100,000 registered voters — more than the approximately 90,700 it needed before the deadline that day — to move forward with getting its proposal on the general election ballot. In his letter, Thurston said the lack of required paperwork affected 14,143 … Read more
“They almost always put up as many procedural obstacles as possible,” Anna Hochkammer of the Florida Women’s Freedom Coalition said. “They try and make these processes as expensive and complicated as possible, and this is another example of that tactic.” Read more at Politico
A ballot initiative effort in a deep-red state highlights the safety risks around the country for a group of organizers who are mostly women. Read more at 19th News
Their array of tactics includes several bills and ballot measures that would raise the signature-gathering or vote threshold for changing state constitutions, lawsuits to block the initiatives, bureaucratic maneuvers to insert anti-abortion language into the proposals, and street-level confrontations to dissuade voters from signing petitions to put abortion on the ballot. Read more at Politico … Read more
Ohioans voted decisively last year to enshrine abortion rights in the state’s constitution, but all three of the Republicans competing in a tough U.S. Senate primary here say they are open to overruling them and supporting federal restrictions. Read more at NBC News
Now, it’s different. “Women and pregnant people in this country are so angry and so shocked at the treatment that they are receiving at the hands of the state that they have been compelled to tell their stories,” she says. Read more at National Public Radio, Inc.
In Ohio, Kansas and Michigan, for example, where abortion rights advocates won major victories in ballot measures over the past two years, anti-abortion groups and lawmakers are now turning their focus to blocking implementation of the initiatives by proposing bills and threatening lawsuits that would restrict the reproductive rights those elections protected. Read more at … Read more
“We don’t believe those rights should be subjected to majority vote.” Read more at Politico
“The organized opposition is more aggressive than I’ve encountered in any of these fights in the past,” says Adam Weiland, who has worked on various ballot measures in the state for years. “It’s the first time I’ve ever encountered people who don’t even want you to get on the ballot and let the voters vote. … Read more
