Image CreditFDRLST/Canva

A deceptive measure that would prohibit Arkansas from regulating abortion until after 18 weeks gestation was disqualified from eligibility for November’s ballot this week after the state’s secretary of state found that the abortion activists leading the charge ignored signature-gathering laws to pad the numbers for their petition.

The Arkansas Constitution’s 68th amendment pledges “to protect the life of every unborn child from conception until birth, to the extent permitted by the Federal Constitution.”

The abortion proposal is billed by its drafters as Arkansans for Limited Government (ALG) as protecting abortion exceptions such as rape, incest, and the life of the mother. The text of the amendment, however, would permit abortion, regardless of state statute, through all nine months of gestation for broad and vaguely defined scenarios involving fatal fetal anomalies and the health of the woman.

ALG claimed it garnered more than 100,000 signatures on a petition that blatantly seeks to override the will of a majority of Americans by the early July deadline. In a letter to one of the abortion amendment drafters, however, Arkansas Secretary of State John Thurston said activists not only failed to submit the names of paid signature canvassers but also did not verify they adequately briefed those same canvassers on state laws regarding petitions.

“Even if your failure to comply with [the law] did not require me to reject your submission outright, it would certainly mean that signatures gathered by paid canvassers in your submission could not be counted for any reason,” Thurston wrote.

He noted that 14,143 of the 101,525 submitted signatures were collected by compensated canvassers, leaving the abortion activists 3,322 signatures short of the state-mandated goal.

“Therefore, even if I could accept your submission, I would be forced to find that your petition is insufficient on its face for failure to obtain the required 90,704 signatures,” Thurston concluded.

Despite their blatant neglect of state petition requirements, which Thurston noted were deemed constitutional by the Arkansas Supreme Court nearly one decade ago, ALG accused the Republican of deliberately misleading the organization about state law in order to execute a “ridiculous disqualification attempt.”

Thurston’s rebuke is not the first time ALG’s extreme abortion activism has failed to satisfy the state. In November, Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin scolded the organization for expecting certification of their “misleading” and vague proposal.

It’s also not the first time the states facing ballot measure battles across the nation, like Montana, South Dakota, and New York, have had to fight to hold abortion activists’ scheming accountable.

“Today’s development is a win. It not only preserves the law that protects 3,133 babies in the womb annually but also guards women from a predatory abortion lobby that would remove every single safety regulation on abortion businesses from the books under this amendment and endanger mothers’ lives,” SBA Pro-Life America Southern Regional Director Caitlin Connors said in a statement.

Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on X @jordanboydtx.