Arkansas justices urged to compel count

Measures’ promoters take signatures case to high court

Secretary of State John Thurston says Thursday, July 2, 2020, that voters can begin requesting absentee ballots from his office or their county clerk immediately.
(Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Staton Breidenthal)
Secretary of State John Thurston says Thursday, July 2, 2020, that voters can begin requesting absentee ballots from his office or their county clerk immediately. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Staton Breidenthal)

Two ballot committees promoting proposed constitutional amendments on changing elections for most state offices and the method used for redistricting on Friday asked the Arkansas Supreme Court to compel Secretary of State John Thurston to begin counting the signatures they submitted in their bids to qualify the proposals for the Nov. 3 ballot.

The two committees also asked the state's high court to order the Republican secretary of state to provide them with more time -- at least 30 days -- to collect more signatures.

The Arkansas Voters First committee is promoting the proposal to overhaul legislative and congressional redistricting.

The Open Primaries Arkansas committee is promoting the proposal to require ranked-choice voting for most state offices.

[RELATED » Full coverage of elections in Arkansas » arkansasonline.com/elections/]

On behalf of the two committees and individually, Bonnie Miller of Fayetteville, chairwoman of Arkansas Voters First, filed the petition.

It asked the Arkansas Supreme Court to enter a preliminary and permanent injunction to order Thurston to count the signatures and grant extra time for circulating petitions.

Thurston announced Tuesday that because of an error regarding criminal background checks, the petitions for three proposed constitutional amendments -- on redistricting, elections and casino licenses -- are insufficient to qualify for the November ballot.

Thurston explained his decisions in letters dated Tuesday.

Letters went to attorney David Couch, regarding the redistricting and ranked-choice elections.

The third letter went to attorney Todd Wooten, representing the Arkansas Wins in 2020 Inc. committee, which collected signatures for the proposal that would authorize 16 more casinos in Arkansas.

In his two letters to Couch, Thurston said the list of paid canvassers who solicited signatures for the two petitions was accompanied by the following certification: "On behalf of the sponsors, this statement and submission of names serves as certification that a statewide Arkansas State Police background check, as wells as, 50-state criminal background check have been timely acquired in the 30 days before the first day the Paid canvasser begins to collect signatures as required by Act 1104 of 2017."

Thurston wrote to Couch that acquiring a criminal background check is not the same as passing one.

"Because Arkansas Voters First did not comply with Ark. Code Ann. 7-9-601(b)(3), none of the signatures solicited by the paid canvassers may be counted for any purpose," he said. "Thus, the petition is insufficient to qualify for the November 3, 2020 general election ballot."

Thurston wrote that his office was barred under state law from counting the submitted signatures.

In their petition filed with the Supreme Court on Friday, the Arkansas Voters First and the Open Primaries Arkansas committees said they submitted their respective, timely and valid petitions with the requisite accompanying signatures to the secretary of state on July 6, before Thurston declared the petitions insufficient on Tuesday and refused to count any signatures they provided.

The two committees said Thurston's summation of the certifications provided by paid canvassers is "conveniently incomplete."

The committees argued in their filing that the certifications for the canvassers were in compliance with Arkansas Code Annotated 7-9-601.

Thurston's refusal to count any of the committees' signatures violates Arkansas Code Annotated 7-9-126, the two committees said.

They said the secretary of state's position is "disingenuous and contrary to his position with regard to the counting of signatures in support of Safe Surgery Arkansas in Arkansas for Healthy Eyes v. Thurston, Arkansas Supreme Court Case ... in which the secretary of state counted signatures with the same certification.

"Said contradictory approaches reflect that, rather than fulfill the duties of his job, the secretary of state has instead decided to rely upon sophistry in an attempt to thwart the statewide initiative process," the two committees said.

Thurston spokesman Chris Powell said Friday that "due to pending litigation, we do not have a comment at this time."

Thurston's rulings on the redistricting, open primary and casino ballot proposals came a day after a special master appointed by the state Supreme Court concluded that the Safe Surgery Arkansas committee proposing a Nov. 3 referendum on a state law that allows optometrists to perform a broader range of eye surgeries didn't submit enough valid signatures to qualify for the ballot.

The effort fell short because of the terminology used to certify that some paid canvassers for the Safe Surgery Arkansas committee passed criminal background checks, and that invalidated the names they collected, the special master's report said Monday.

The Supreme Court appointed retired Circuit Judge Mark Hewett in April as a special master to determine some questions of fact raised in a lawsuit filed in late February by the Arkansans for Healthy Eyes committee. The committee is trying to stop the proposed referendum from being placed on the ballot.

The state's high court, after reviewing Hewett's report, will make its own decision.

The Arkansas Voters First's proposed redistricting amendment would shift the authority for redrawing the boundaries of legislative districts from the state Board of Apportionment -- comprising the governor, attorney general and secretary of state -- to a nine-member independent commission comprising three Democrats, three Republicans and three independents.

The proposal also would shift authority for redrawing the boundaries of the congressional districts from the Legislature to the nine-member commission. The boundaries of legislative and congressional districts are redrawn once a decade, after the census.

Under the Open Primaries Arkansas committee's ranked-choice proposal, candidates for Congress, the General Assembly and constitutional offices would run in an open primary against other candidates for those offices, regardless of party.

In each race, the four candidates with the most votes in the open primary would then advance to the general election.

In the general election, voters would then rank their preferred candidates one through four. If no candidate wins an outright majority in that election, then the candidate with the fewest voters would be eliminated, and those voters' second and third choices would be added to the remaining candidates' tallies until someone obtained the majority threshold.

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