Progress of each Arkansas ballot initiative ahead of the signature deadline in July

Allowing State Lottery Proceeds to Fund Scholarships

Issue 1 is identified by the popular name "Allowing State Lottery Proceeds to Fund Vocational or Technical School Scholarships for Arkansans." This was the first ballot item to be qualified for the November election. 

This ballot was not a citizen-led initiative. Instead, it was approved by Arkansas lawmakers as the state Constitution allows the legislator to add up to three amendments to the general election ballot. 

If passed, this amendment would allow "lottery proceeds" to go toward scholarships and grants to Arkansans enrolled in colleges or universities (two or four years), a vocational-technical school, or a technical institute. These schools can be either private or public. 

For the complete text of the ballot issue, click here. 

Abortion Amendment

Sponsors of the Arkansas Abortion Amendment said they are confident that they will meet the state's signature requirements to place the amendment on the November ballot. 

"Our signature collection efforts have really ramped up as we near the deadline of July 5," Gennie Diaz with Arkansans For Limited Government (AFLG) said. "We are within striking distance of our goal."

According to Diaz, the ballot sponsor has trained nearly 800 volunteers across the state to collect signatures. 

"Our volunteers, along with our paid canvassers, are pushing hard during this last stretch," Diaz said. "We’ve also grown our donor base, which is by and large made up of Arkansas donors. We’re exceptionally proud of this."

However, she did not provide an exact number of signatures they have collected so far. Rebecca Bobrow with AFLG said the group is about "three-quarters of the way there." 

"We're actually, we think, closer than that, and we are feeling cautiously optimistic," Bobrow said. 

The Arkansas Abortion Amendment would prohibit the state from banning abortions within the first 18 weeks of pregnancy, or in the instance of rape, incest, or fatal fetal anomalies. 

Instead of only allowing abortions to save the mother when medically necessary, the ballot would extend protection to pregnant women with a physical disorder, illness, or injury such as:

• Any life-endangering disorders, illnesses, or injuries caused by the pregnancy.
• Any situation where the pregnancy could pose a danger to cell growth or any of these systems:
  • Respiratory
  • Circulatory
  • Endocrine
  • Reproductive
  • Nervous

For the full opinion and proposed ballot amendment, click here. 

Marijuana Amendment

Bill Paschall, managing director of the Arkansas Cannabis Industry Association, is helping lead the canvassing effort for the Arkansas Medical Marijuana Amendment of 2024.

He told 5NEWS content partner Arkansas Business that the ballot initiative is on course to qualify for the November ballot. 

"The ballot access effort is right on track," Paschall said. "We are confident 90,704 registered voters will sign a petition to put the Medical Marijuana Amendment of 2024 on the November ballot. Arkansans are excited about barriers to access being eliminated and the cost of obtaining a card reduced."

Paschall did not provide an exact number of signatures. 

If passed, the amendment would expand Arkansans' access to medical marijuana by allowing more healthcare professionals to prescribe the drug. 

Healthcare professionals include: 

• Medical and osteopathic doctors
• Nurse practitioners
• Physicians' assistants
• Pharmacists

The measure would also expand the conditions treated by weed. Qualifying medical conditions included in Amendment 98 of 2016 will remain, but the measure would add any condition that a "health care practitioner considers debilitating to a patient that might be alleviated by the use of usable marijuana."

Under the measure, access to medical marijuana cards would be expanded to non-Arkansas residents. It would also extend the expiration date of these cards from one year to three years. For those with existing cards, two years of use would be added. 

The measure seeks to amend Article 5 to ensure no constitutional amendment would be amended or repealed by the legislature "unless approved by the people" of Arkansas. 

A trigger law is also included that if federal law ends up prohibiting marijuana use, Arkansas would still allow the purchase and possession of "usable marijuana" up to 1 ounce. 

For the full opinion and proposed ballot amendment, click here. 

Act to exempt tax on feminine hygiene products, diapers

Katie Clark with the Arkansas Period Poverty Project said the organization is hopeful they will reach the signature requirement.

"We are still collecting signatures across the entire state with multiple signing events every week," Clark said. "We have more than 100 volunteers helping us collect signatures, so our numbers continue to increase every day. We remain hopeful that we’ll reach our goal of over 72,000 signatures by July 5." 

Clark did not give an exact number of signatures collected so far. 

This act would exempt sales and use tax for feminine hygiene products and children and adult diapers. 

Feminine products include: 

• Tampons
• Pantyliners
• Menstrual cups
• Sanitary napkins 
• Any other product associated with "the human menstrual cycle"

Griffin approved the proposal on Oct. 10, 2023. The full proposed act and opinion are available here. 

Education Amendment

Bill Kopsky, treasurer of For AR Kids and executive director of the Arkansas Public Policy Panel, estimates the Arkansas Educational Rights Amendment campaign has collected over half of the necessary signatures needed for July. 

"More and more counties are hitting their minimum required signatures each day and we estimate we are over halfway in the 50-county requirement for signature submission," Kopsky said. 

Although he estimated that the group is at the halfway point to reaching the 90,704 requirement, Kopsky did not provide a specific number. 

"This is a grassroots, all-volunteer-led campaign, and as we approach our July 5th deadline we are seeing more and more events pop up and increased traffic to our events," he said. "The pace of signature collection has increased over the past few weeks and we expect it to continue to grow until we submit our signatures for verification on July 5th."

If passed, the amendment would amend Article 14 of the Arkansas Constitution to require identical academic and accreditation standards for schools that receive state or local funds. 

If passed, this amendment would also expand the free public school system in the following ways: 

• Access to voluntary, early childhood education for students between 3-years-old until they qualify for Kindergarten
• Access to voluntary after-school and summer programs
• Provide assistance to children who are within the 200% of the federal poverty line to "overcome the negative impact of poverty on education"
• Providing services to meet the individualized needs of students with disabilities

For the full opinion and proposed ballot amendment, click here. 

Government Transparency Amendment and Act

A collection of Arkansas transparency amendments was approved by Griffin on Jan. 24. 

Arkansas Citizens for Transparency began submitting proposals to Griffin in September. Their goal is to see Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) laws protected by the state's constitution, as they're currently not in the constitution. 

The AG rejected previous versions of the group's proposals because he said the language wasn't clear enough. After several rejections, the group sued Griffin in a suit that has since been dropped. 

Now, the group is collecting signatures for the Arkansas Government Disclosure Amendment (full opinion here) and the Arkansas Government Disclosure Act (full opinion here). 

Amendment

If passed, this amendment would establish government transparency as a right of Arkansans, meaning the government is obligated to share information with citizens.  

It would prohibit the General Assembly from passing a law about government transparency without a vote from Arkansans. The process would include a two-thirds majority vote from the House and the Senate before referring the bill for the next general election.

It would also prohibit the General Assembly from amending this amendment or any other amendment concerning government transparency. However, citizens may amend it. 

Additionally, the amendment has an emergency declaration, meaning it will go into effect immediately after the November election if the General Assembly declares an emergency by a nine-tenths majority vote. 

Finally, the state can be named in lawsuits if government institutions fail to comply with the transparency requirements. 

Act

If passed, this act would repeal Act 833 which allows a school's board of directors, superintendent, and attorney to hold a private meeting to discuss litigation matters.

Therefore, this act would require all public meetings to be conducted in a manner that allows the public to attend. Additionally, regularly scheduled meetings must be published online at least 48 hours before the meeting. 

If access to a public record is requested, this act would also require a records custodian to provide the requester with a response within three working days. If the custodian fails to do so, it will be considered a denial of the request unless the Arkansas Government Transparency Commission has extended the custodian's response time. However, public records can be exempt from disclosure if it has personal and/or private information in them. 

Similar to the amendment, if a custodian or other governmental officer fails to comply with Arkansas's laws governing open meetings or open records, a lawsuit can be filed. 

To monitor any violations, this act would create an Arkansas Government Transparency Commission composed of five members appointed by the President Pro Tempore of the Senate, the Speaker of the House, the minority leader of the Senate, the minority leader of the House, and the Lieutenant Governor. 

5NEWS is still waiting to hear back from the sponsors of the government transparency act and amendment. 

Absentee Voting Amendment

According to Attorney Clinton Lancaster, the Arkansas Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit asking the court to certify two ballot measures for the November election, including the Absentee Voting Procedures Amendment, on May 30. 

Under a lengthy ballot title, the previously proposed amendment would have "set the time for absentee voting, create absentee voting procedures, determine the manner in which absentee ballots are counted or tabulated, and ensure that elections cannot be conducted in this state using an internet, Bluetooth, or wireless connection."

The measure sought to only allow absentee ballots to be distributed within 30 days before election day, requiring the county clerks to distribute them to only requesting and qualified voters. 

Supporters of the ballot initiative filed the original jurisdiction complaint against Secretary of State John Thurston and the State Board Election Commissioners on Jan. 9. Griffin certified the ballot title on Jan. 11. 

Lancaster provided the following statement: 

"The Arkansas Supreme Court dismissed our original jurisdiction case. That left us without any approved ballot measures to run. The court indicated that any challenges to the process had to be in circuit court. The court did invite us to collect signatures and take our chances that we will prevail down the road, but that is an expensive endeavor and one we were not willing to risk, especially given how much we had invested in the lawsuit." 

Antique License Plate Act 

According to David Dinwiddie, the sponsor of The Arkansas Historic or Special Interest Vehicle Act of 2024, the initiative will not make it onto the November ballot. 

"It looks like it's not going to be on the ballot because I was unable to raise money to operate the project," Dinwiddie said. "On the bright side, we have a ballot initiative that can be approved again in 2026."

This bill would have changed the year model requirement to get antique tags for a vehicle in Arkansas from a minimum of 45 years to a minimum of 25 years. 

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