Backers of an effort to place a minimum wage increase on Arkansas' November ballot passed a preliminary threshold in the petitioning process Monday and will have a month to gather more than 10,000 additional signatures.
In a letter Monday to David Couch, the attorney behind the proposal to raise the state minimum wage to $11 an hour, the secretary of state's office said he had not collected enough signatures.
Couch collected no more than 52,124 valid signatures for his proposal, according to the secretary of state. The required number of signatures to get an initiated act on the ballot in 2018 is 67,887.
It's common for solicitors of initiated acts and constitutional amendments to fall short of the required number of signatures in their first attempt.
Earlier this month, when Couch submitted boxes containing 69,413 signatures to the secretary of state's office, he told reporters that he expected tabulators to invalidate some of the signatures, kicking off the 30-day "cure" period.
During the cure period, Couch and his team may attempt to get more signatures, or show why some of the invalidated signatures should be counted.
In a phone call Monday, Couch said the number verified by the state is about what he expected.
"They had some culls, and we'll have a chance to go look at them," Couch said. "Sometimes someone forgets a date or something."
Since turning in his first batch of signatures, Couch said he's continued to use paid canvassers with National Ballot Access to gather more signatures. He believes he already has more than enough additional signatures to turn into the secretary of state's office, he said.
Arkansas' current minimum wage is $8.50 per hour. Under Couch's proposal, it would rise to $9.25 in 2019, $10 in 2020 and $11 in 2021.
Arkansas' minimum wage is already higher than all of its surrounding states. A proposed ballot initiative in neighboring Missouri would raise that state's minimum wage to $12 an hour in 2023, if passed by voters.
In 2014, Arkansas voters elected to raise the minimum wage to its current level with 65 percent of the vote.
The minimum wage initiative is one of several being reviewed by the secretary of state's office. Last week, the office gave backers of a proposed amendment to expand gambling in Arkansas 30 days to gather more signatures.
Petitioners have also submitted signatures for a proposal to enact shorter term limits for Arkansas legislators. A spokesman said Monday the office is still reviewing signatures submitted for the term limits proposal.
A Section on 07/31/2018