There almost certainly won’t be any citizen-led initiatives on the November ballot after Secretary of State Cole Jester announced he was disqualifying the one effort that submitted signatures. 

Ironically, the proposed amendment by Protect AR Rights was an attempt to reform the ballot initiative process itself. 

Jester informed Protect AR Rights July 30 that he had disqualified all of the 108,837 signatures it collected. He said he did so because the popular name on each page read “The Ballot Measure Rights Amendment of 2026” instead of the attorney general-approved “The Arkansas Ballot Measure Rights Amendment.”

Let’s pause and provide some background. 

The Arkansas Constitution says citizens can pass their own laws and constitutional amendments. 

In fact, Article 5, the part describing lawmaking, starts not with the House and Senate but with the initiative process. It says that while legislators have the power to make laws, “the people reserve to themselves the power to propose legislative measures, laws and amendments to the Constitution, and to enact or reject the same at the polls independent of the General Assembly.” 

The citizen-led process has led to consequential changes. Those include increasing the minimum wage, enacting term limits, granting casino licenses, legalizing medical marijuana, and declaring that marriage is a union between one man and one woman.

But in recent years, many efforts have been disqualified by signature collection technicalities. Furthermore, the Legislature has passed a series of laws making it harder to collect signatures. The latest batch occurred after voters said canvassers misled them on a measure that would have legalized abortion. U.S. District Judge Timothy Brooks has issued a summary judgment against much of the legislation. 

Amidst this, Protect AR Rights sought to pass a constitutional amendment that would have made petition signing a fundamental right. It also would have let citizens correct deficient signatures, let citizen groups correct minor errors, prevented the Legislature from amending citizen-passed constitutional amendments, and required opponents to file lawsuits quickly. 

The group received almost $1.4 million in contributions from the National Education Association. That’s a teacher’s union that conservatives consider to be liberal. Its Arkansas affiliate tried unsuccessfully this year to pass an amendment making major changes to the state’s education system.

Protect AR Rights was required to submit at least 90,704 valid signatures from registered voters. It submitted 108,837 on the July 3 deadline. That was probably not enough to qualify once the secretary of state threw out the bad ones, of which there invariably are tens of thousands. But it might have been enough to qualify for a constitutionally granted “cure period” providing time to collect more. 

In addition to the aforementioned issue with the popular name, Jester’s office found other flaws in Protect AR Rights’ submission. He said 87 pages contained signatures for the aforementioned education amendment. He also presented examples of notarized blank signatures, similar signatures of different names, individuals signing twice on the same page, and out-of-state signers.

It’s unknown how much of this was fraudulent, how much was inattentiveness, and how much was forgivable. These efforts involve paid canvassers along with volunteers of various ages and experience levels. There are bound to be mistakes when people are collecting 100,000 signatures on the street. Things can get frantic at the end. On the other hand, we are talking about amending the Constitution.

Seven signers have asked the Arkansas Supreme Court to require Jester to count the signatures. They argue that they were not confused by the addition of “of 2026” or the removal of “Arkansas.” 

But they face very long odds. The certification deadline is Aug. 20. Protect AR Rights is probably short of valid signatures and would have to submit more. And the Supreme Court has a history of not siding with citizen groups in these cases.

The initiative process is broken, which is a shame. Big-money National Whatever Association donors get no sympathy in these cases, of course. But citizen volunteers, regardless of the issue, put in a lot of work doing what the Constitution says they have a right to do, and it’s almost always all for naught these days.

It’s time to consider redoing the whole process, if we’re going to keep it. The initiative process should be difficult, especially when someone wants to amend the Constitution. But at some point, people will quit participating in efforts they believe cannot succeed. 

Can we create a system that doesn’t depend so much on out-of-state contributors, an always suspect signature collection process, and the approval of the very same political establishment citizens are trying to work around?

Any ideas?

Steve Brawner’s column is syndicated to 24 news outlets in Arkansas. Email him at brawnersteve@mac.com.