Hey Rulers! Today marks 52 days until Election Day. As Nov. 5 inches closer, ballot certification is well underway in states across the country. On that note, let’s get to it: Voters in 10 states will decide on abortion-related measures this November. But the fight to get — and keep — these measures on the ballot rages on. A majority of these measures were citizen-initiated, led by citizen groups that require a certain number of signatures in order to qualify for the ballot. One measure, which would have given Arkansas voters the opportunity to soften the state’s near-total abortion ban, was blocked by the state Supreme Court in August. The majority-conservative court sided with Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin, a Republican, who argued that the group had not turned in the proper paperwork by the June 27 deadline and failed to certify all paid canvassers. For abortion rights activists, the decision was met with disappointment, anger and frustration, according to Rebecca Bobrow, the director of strategy at Arkansans for Limited Government, the group behind the proposed abortion measure. “[We are] feeling very much like this was a concerted, unethical effort to keep us off the ballot by any means necessary,” Bobrow tells Women Rule. Now, AFLG’s legal team is determining whether or not the group will appeal the decision. “Even if there’s not legal recourse here, there’s likely to be some political recourse,” Bobrow says. “The voters are going to remember this in November. ” Abortion rights activists in the state are pivoting their focus to the race for chief justice in November, when Arkansas Supreme Court Justices Rhonda Wood and Karen Baker will face off. Wood wrote the majority opinion for the court’s decision to block the abortion measure, with Baker dissenting. But the loss of an abortion measure on the ballot is devastating for voters, Bobrow says. “Many of them do feel like their constitutionally-protected right to engage in direct democracy is being sort of pulled away from them,” Bobrow says. “For all Arkansans, this not being on the ballot means that there’s not an opportunity to restore reproductive rights.” In states where abortion measures did make the ballot, the fight continues. Nebraska is the only state with two competing abortion-related measures on the ballot this November. One measure would codify the right to abortion up to fetal viability, or roughly 20 to 25 weeks, while the opposing measure would enshrine the state’s current 12-week ban, which includes exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the pregnant woman. The state Supreme Court on Monday heard arguments on three cases seeking to remove either one or both of the competing Nebraska measures from the ballot. Two of the cases argue that the abortion-rights measure violates a state rule that voter-initiated measures only cover a single subject. The other argues that the competing measures should both be on the ballot, and if not, both should be removed. The court ruled Friday that both measures will remain on the ballot. Attorneys from the Thomas More Society, who are challenging the measure’s place on the ballot, argue that the abortion-rights measure includes “remarkably misleading terms” and is “unconstitutionally riddled with separate subjects,” according to court records. Protect Our Rights is behind the campaign seeking to get the abortion-rights measure on the ballot in Nebraska. Allie Berry, the group’s campaign manager, calls the attempts to remove the measure a “distraction.” “Our campaign is the only thing standing in the way of extreme politicians' end goal: a total abortion ban in the state. We know the majority of the people and medical providers are on our side. We're hopeful the Court will do the right thing and let people vote,” says Berry. Berry says that the opposing initiative enshrining the 12-week abortion ban created challenges during the signature collection process. Opponents used tactics to deceive voters in order to get signatures for their anti-abortion measure, Berry says, including spreading misinformation and claiming that their initiative would protect abortion rights. (A spokesperson from the Nebraska Family Alliance, a nonprofit supporting the anti-abortion measure, did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication.) “And we’ve already seen the repercussions of that, with over 300 people choosing to remove their name from the signature collection phase,” Berry says. Despite these difficulties the Protect Our Rights initiative secured 207,000 signatures, far surpassing the roughly 120,000 needed to reach the ballot. In Florida, Amendment 4, a measure to limit government interference with abortion, is slated for the ballot. If enacted, the measure would overturn the state’s current six-week abortion ban. While the measure has faced legal opposition from anti-abortion activists, opponents are using other avenues to fight the measure’s implementation. Presidential candidate Donald Trump, a Florida resident, initially criticized the state’s abortion ban. The statements led to backlash from anti-abortion advocates and the former president backtracked those statements a day later, saying he would oppose Amendment 4. “Amendment 4 is dangerous, deceptive, and extreme. It would allow abortions at any time and for almost any reason, including late-term abortions when a baby can feel pain,” Florida first lady Casey DeSantis writes in a post. Meanwhile, Florida state police are going to homes of local voters to question their decision to sign the petition supporting the initiative, and a new website launched by the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration includes language criticizing the measure. The DeSantis administration also said it is investigating “fraudulent activity” in the petition-signing process. On Thursday, the ACLU of Florida and Southern Legal Counsel filed a joint lawsuit on behalf of Floridians Protecting Freedom, the group behind the abortion rights measure. The suit aims to block AHCA’s use of information it deems “false and misleading” and argues that “AHCA’s website, television, and radio advertisements contain inflammatory, false, and misleading statements that misrepresent Amendment 4.” Lauren Brenzel, the campaign director for Yes on 4: Floridians Protecting Freedom, says the state “will stop at nothing to keep their extreme abortion law.” “Florida's government fears the will of the people, coming after our freedom of speech and engaging in voter intimidation. … The state is blatantly ignoring the will of Floridians and undermining our freedoms,” Brenzel says. In order for citizen-initiated measures to reach the ballot in Florida, they need to cross a threshold of over 890,000 signatures, or 8 percent of the electorate in the state’s congressional districts. Other states require between 100,000 and 300,000 valid signatures. The Florida measure garnered slightly over 997,000 signatures. It will need support from 60 percent of voters to pass this November. A recent poll from the University of North Florida’s Public Opinion Research Lab found that 69 percent of voters in the state favor passing Amendment 4. For Brenzel, who uses they/them pronouns, the momentum and energy from voters who support Amendment 4 is a hopeful sign. “It wasn’t hard to get Florida voters to sign this because they want to see an end to this ban,” Brenzel says. “Thirty-five percent of our signers for our petition were Republican or independent voters,” Brenzel says. Since the 2022 Dobbs ruling, when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, abortion rights measures have won consistently in state elections with support often bleeding across party lines. Noreen Farrell, executive director at nonprofit Equal Rights Advocates, tells Women Rule this bodes well for abortion rights measures in this election. “Citizen-initiated constitutional amendments are a really powerful tool that is being used to let voters place abortion on the ballot without directly involving the legislature or governor,” Farrell says. As she sees it, the intense pushback against the ballot measures “reflects a widening of strategies that anti-abortion activists and groups are employing to make sure that these … initiatives never see the light of day.”
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