The ARPPP, with allies and volunteers, has turned in more than 108,837 signatures to support the Arkansas Ballot Measure Rights Amendment, effectively ensuring this initiative will appear on the statewide ballot in November.
They achieved this victory by “blowing the doors off” the minimum 91,000 signatures required, according to ARPPP executive director Bill Kopsky. And this effort is not slowing down: they intend to collect 150,000 signatures or more before the August deadline.
“This means that Arkansas voters will likely have the opportunity to decide for themselves in November whether they want to protect their ballot measure rights, or give them away to the politicians and special interests trying to strip them away,” said Kopsky.
The Ballot Measure Rights Amendment seeks to ensure the right of Arkansans to participate in direct democracy by collecting signatures to propose legislation through ballot measures. Arkansas is one of only three southern states that allow ballot measures, which have been successfully used to raise the state’s minimum wage.
Unsurprisingly, more than a dozen laws have been recently rushed through the state’s legislature to restrict citizens’ ability to collect signatures, by requiring canvassers to request photo ID from signers, and disclosing volunteers’ home addresses. A federal judge, Timothy Brooks, struck down these proposals as unconstitutional on July 1.
Kopsky and other ARPPP members have crisscrossed Arkansas all year to build support for the two proposed ballot measures. The ARPPP, which was founded in 1963 by a multiracial group of mothers who traveled the state speaking to churches and civic organizations to build acceptance for school integration, has kept that tradition alive by traveling the state to hold town halls and collect signatures.
“That’s what these campaigns are: they’re grandmas and moms and dads and granddads out collecting signatures at farmers’ markets,” said Kopsky.