The Safe Surgery Arkansas committee has asked the Arkansas Supreme Court to order the secretary of state to certify for the 2020 general election ballot a proposed referendum on a 2019 law to allow optometrists to conduct a broader range of eye surgeries.
The committee filed a petition on Tuesday afternoon with the state’s high court seeking a writ of mandamus to the secretary of state to declare that 61,065 signatures submitted by the committee must be counted, the proposal’s ballot title and popular name are sufficient, and the petition is sufficient to be placed on the November 2020 ballot.
This action comes after Secretary of State John Thurston earlier his month determined that the Safe Surgery Arkansas committee failed to submit enough valid signatures of registered voters to qualify the proposed referendum on the eye surgery law for the 2020 general election ballot.
Thurston’s office said the committee’s petition contained 23,953 signatures and was thus declared insufficient because 53,491 valid signatures were required.
On July 23, the Safe Surgery Committee officials reported that they turned in petitions with more than 84,000 signatures to the secretary of state’s office and they believe that had enough signatures of registered voters to qualify the proposal for the ballot.
The committee said in its court filing that it is challenging the secretary of states’ decision to apply Act 376 of 2019 to its proposed referendum and disenfranchising 61,065 legal voters who signed the committee’s petition.
But Vicki Farmer, chairwoman of the Arkansans for Healthy Eyes committee that supports the eye surgery law, said that “we are confident in the secretary of state’s application of the law and rejection of the petition, which included tens of thousands of unlawfully solicited signatures.”