An amendment to legalize abortion in Arkansas has been thrown out for procedural errors.
The Secretary of State's office sent a letter on Wednesday announcing the decision to reject the Arkansas Abortion Amendment. The amendment was sponsored by the group Arkansans for Limited Government. They said they had collected over 101 thousand signatures to put the amendment on the ballot, surpassing the 90,704 threshold.
Secretary of State John Thurston said he could not certify the amendment because the sponsors did not submit two specific pieces of paperwork. The first was a list of paid canvassers and the second was a document proving that paid canvassers had access to the signature gathering handbook. The office said they were then forced to throw out the over 14 thousand signatures collected by paid employees. This means the canvassers did not collect enough signatures to put their amendment on the ballot.